


Me and you(r ghost)

by Unbreakable_Vow



Series: FB into the Potterverse [2]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Multi, Neville Longbottom is a Good Friend, POV Nagini, POV Neville Longbottom, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, ghost!nagini
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:42:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 26,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23383237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unbreakable_Vow/pseuds/Unbreakable_Vow
Summary: The first time Neville sees her, it’s been barely a week since the battle of Hogwarts, and between the reconstruction and helping Madam Pomfrey to heal the wounded, he’s so tired that he thinks, in the thirty seconds that it takes him to close his eyes, that that girl must have been a hallucination conjured by his mind.The summer after the Battle of Hogwarts, with a surprising twist
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald, Credence Barebone/Nagini, Hermione Granger/Harry Potter/Ron Weasley, Luna Lovegood/Rolf Scamander, Nagini & Albus Dumbledore, Nagini & Newt Scamander, Nagini & Tom Riddle, Nagini & Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Neville Longbottom & Harry Potter, Neville Longbottom & Luna Lovegood & Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom/Nagini, non romantic - Relationship, past - Relationship
Series: FB into the Potterverse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1721911
Comments: 51
Kudos: 46





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been in my mind for a very long time, and now i've finally found the time to put my ideas into words. English is not my first language and this story is unbetaed, so be warned :) i'm actually looking for a beta, so if someone wants to help me i would be very grateful
> 
> More chapters to come soon. Please enjoy.

  
  


The first time Neville sees her, it’s been barely a week since the battle of Hogwarts, and between the reconstruction and helping Madam Pomfrey to heal the wounded, he’s so tired that he thinks, in the thirty seconds that it takes him to close his eyes, that that girl must have been a hallucination conjured by his mind.

The second time is twelve hours later, when he opens his eyes, and she is still there staring at him.

"Can I help you?" he asks, because he is used to the strange behavior of ghosts and thinks that it’s probably normal for her to be still there - he has never seen this particular ghost before, but he imagines that all ghosts act in the same way.

The girl continues to stare at him, but doesn't answer.

"Um, ok," Neville continues, becoming more and more awake by the second. "Well, you're not from here, so you must be new... I'm Neville," he adds, noticing the strange clothes the girl wears - a long richly embroidered tunic that covers her whole body and that, Neville imagines, must have had very bright colors. _Was this girl at the battle?_

"I know who you are," she says, speaking for the first time, a particular accent that Neville can't identify.

"Well," he replies, trying to force himself to remember what the Friar had told him in fourth year about what it meant to be a new ghost. What did he say? That in the first few days you feel disoriented, that you go looking for the thing that is most familiar to you -

"You killed me a week ago."

Neville, who was lost in thought, with those words feels the blood in his veins froze. "No!" he replies, perhaps more vehemently than necessary. "Look, it couldn't have been me."

The girl keeps looking at him, and Neville doesn't know if that's a good sign. _Could she have been a death eater? But even if she were, it couldn't have been me anyway ._ "It was a difficult war," he says slowly, "many people died. But I didn't kill anyone. The only thing I killed was - "

"A snake," replies the girl. There is almost a hint of a smile on her face. "Nagini."

"Exactly!" Neville replies. "So I can't-"

"You beheaded me," continues the girl as if she hadn't heard him. "Right here," she says, pulling down the high neck of her strange dress, where a big mark, exactly like the one on Sir Nicholas’, is present all over her neck.

Neville looks at her, petrified, until she pulls up her dress and leans on the bed next to him.

After that, she throws himself at him.

She does that with such an impact and violence that Neville doesn’t even notice it before it’s too late.

***

When he recovers - and someone must have entered the dormitory and must have found him badly beaten up, because he wakes up in the infirmary - she is gone.

Madam Pomfrey tells him to be more careful next time to avoid banging his head, and Neville, still shaken, just nods and leaves the infirmary (luckily emptier than it was in the past few days, given the fact that many people have recovered or ended up at San Mungo for more in-depth care) escorted by Ginny and Luna to the Great Hall for lunch.

He does not see the ghost for the whole day, nor the following one, and he could even dismiss the incident as a strange dream, but in his heart he knows that it really happened.

That Nagini, Voldemort's snake, is really a ghost, and apparently a woman. And that she’s here, in Hogwarts.

He would like to talk about the incident with his two best friends, Ginny and Luna, but he doesn't want to trouble them; Ginny is still in mourning for her brother and Luna for her father, and moreover all of them are occupied with the reconstruction, so it does not seem appropriate to fill their heads with worries, especially for a story that has only occurred once.

He could talk to someone else (like Hermione, or Harry, or an adult) but he’s always had a hard time talking to people who don't belong to his close circle of friends, especially of things like this; a part of him is afraid to talk to them because he fears that they may judge him as his parents are judged - the magical world is very afraid of mental illness, and although Neville is sure that he has not hallucinated anything, the risk that someone else could think that is too high to risk.

The ghosts can't help him, because none of them has seen the ghost of an oriental girl around, nor do they know where she might have gone. He even asks the Bloody Baron, who has always frightened him, and the Gray Lady, who has always made him uneasy, but they are not useful either.

In the end, his choice falls on Harry, thanks to a thought that comes to him when he tries to reflect about the ways in which Voldemort could have imprisoned a woman in the body of a snake: Harry is the person who knew Voldemort best, and moreover he is the person who had asked him to kill the snake, who better than him can know if Voldemort's snake was a woman or not?

So, a week after seeing Nagini for the first time, he goes to ask Harry Potter.

***

The perfect time to ask Harry about it is that afternoon, when he and Harry find themselves having to repair a small side of the castle that has collapsed after the countless _stupeficiums_ that have been thrown at it.

Flitwick taught them a basic spell to reposition each castle stone in its place, a simple thing within the ability of all Hogwarts students - except only the early years, who anyway had returned home after the funeral, and after having experienced that war with their own eyes.

 _No child should have witness such horrors_ , Neville thinks, _and neither should have we_.

He thinks about the last year he had spent at Hogwarts, at the Carrow, at Snape (he knows now that nothing that he thought about the man was true, he heard Harry's speech on the loyalty that Snape had for his mother and for Dumbledore, but this doesn't make the memories of that year any less terrible), and then thinks about what Harry, Ron and Hermione must have experienced, alone against the whole country in search of ways to defeat Voldemort. Children of just 18 years old.

And so, partly to divert his attention from those thoughts, partly to take advantage of the fact that he and Harry are alone, Neville takes courage and asks him if he knows, by chance, some information about Nagini: more precisely, if he knows if that snake was ever a human once.

But Harry doesn't react as Neville would have expected, that is perplexity or fear. He just looks at him, in a completely apathetic way, which reminds Neville again how many ugly things Harry must have seen – they all have seen those in that past year, but Harry is the worst of them - and he asks: " How do you know?"

"So is that true?" Neville asks. "Was Nagini really a woman?"

"She had a curse, it’s called maledictus. It makes you forget you were a human, slowly making you become a snake," Harry replies, rubbing his eyes, and Neville notices that pieces of ground and concrete cover his hands and now his brow. "By the time Voldemort found her, she was almost completely turned."

Neville has absolutely no idea about any of this, but he trusts Harry on that. "Did Dumbledore tell you?"

"Yes... it was in fifth year, when I saw her attack on Arthur Weasley. Remember?" Neville nods. "He told me she couldn't control it, that her human mind was lost forever. He spoke of it with much sadness... I think he knew her well."

 _So I didn't dream it_ , Neville thinks, _it was really her ghost_. Neville, who was sure of it, feels nonetheless a weight slip off his shoulders: a part of him feared that he had lost his mind - the fear of his life, after having always had to deal with his parents since he was a baby.

"But you didn't tell me how you know it," Harry continues, moving a stone and gently lifting it back into place. Neville, who is helping him for that wall, does the same with a stone next to his one.

"I..." he begins, but then he notices Ron and George coming in their direction. "We'll talk about it later," he concludes, and although Harry looks at him strangely, he doesn't comment.

***

At dinner, that night, Neville takes Harry aside and quietly confesses that he has seen Nagini as a ghost.

Harry, predictably, takes it very badly: Neville spends a good half hour consoling him that he hasn't done anything wrong, that killing Nagini was the key to destroying Voldemort - Hermione told him that, after the battle, even if Neville still doesn't quite know why this is so - and that, at best, Neville is the one to blame for that kill, not Harry.

"I think she has it in for me," he continues. "The only time I saw here she threw herself at me and... it made me pass out somehow, I think."

Harry becomes even paler with this statement. "Where is she now?" he asks, his tone nervous and worried. “We need to talk to her. She mustn't hurt you because of me. "

"Harry, relax," Neville replies, trying to calm him down. "I don't know where she is. I searched for her all week without success. "

But Harry almost seems not to have heard him. "Did you ask anyone if they saw her?"

"I asked the ghosts," Neville replies softly, “but they didn't saw her. And I haven't talked to anyone else but you. "

Neville almost expects Harry to ask him why - and he doesn't know, at that point, if he would feel like giving a sincere answer - but he notes that Harry isn't even listening to him. He's visibly nervous, he seems almost about to start move forward and back to release the tension Neville sees in his body language.

"I didn't know..." he begins, the voice barely a breath. "Dumbledore had told me that... that she was no longer aware of herself... "

Neville, who is now really worried, is almost about to touch him and ask him if he wants to take a calming draught, but before he can do it Harry stops, and his gaze suddenly becomes hard and cruel. Neville thinks that he has never seen his friend so out of control, even in great moments of anger.

"We'll look for her tonight," Harry replies in a mean tone. Neville, surprised by that tone and by how Harry is behaving, does not know what to say: then, immediately afterward, Harry deflates, as if suddenly the force had vanished from his body. His expression becomes deeply sad. "Too many people have died because of me," he whispers, "too many ..."

"Don't say that," Neville replies, hugging him, trying in that hug to communicate how much love and admiration he feels for him, a boy on which the world has put too much weight on his shoulders. "It is not true. And Nagini will understand it."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> here's the second chapter, enjoy!

That night, after everyone else has gone to sleep, Harry and Neville set off in search of Nagini. They immediately decide to start retracing the same process that Neville had done: ask the ghosts if they had seen her.

"She's asian, although I don't know where she's from," Neville says when he describes her. "And she's dressed in an unusual way."

Predictably, no ghost gives the two boys a different answer from what they had given Neville a few days earlier. Harry nevertheless does not give up.

"We asked everyone," he finally says after several hours of research. "The only one left is Myrtle. Did you ask her too? "

Neville nods, remembering the cold response that the ghost had given him, a coldness that has greatly surprised Neville - Luna has always spoken of her as a sociable, even sticky ghost, so he would have expected at least to start a conversation with her, instead to be dismissed abruptly with a simple _No_.

"We'll ask her anyway," Harry says, "and if she can't help us either, we'll think of another solution."

They walk the stairs to the third floor in silence, and Neville feels all the tiredness of the day; Harry, who from what Neville has seen works very hard, must feel even more tired than he is.

 _Everything is eating him alive_ , Neville despairs thinking about it. _And now also Nagini..._

There and then, when Harry had told him about it, he hadn't thought about asking for more information about her. Harry had told him that it was Dumbledore who knew her: how is it possible, however, that no one else did? And how did Voldemort get to know her?

Asking himself this kind of question, Neville knows, will only lead him to dig deeper into himself, and to realize - which he hasn't done yet, he is aware of it - that he has killed a human life. A life already condemned, perhaps, but still a life. He knows that when the time comes that he will realize it, it will be a serious blow for him: he already feels anxiety in his head when he thinks about it, and slight nausea. But he also reasons that this period is not the right one to have personal crisis, not when all the people he loves are experiencing their own dramas. He wants to be here for them, a shoulder they can lean on, so he can't afford to suffer for personal things.

He will deal with his traumas later.

***

Myrtle welcomes Harry in a completely different way from how she welcomed Neville a few days ago: her smile is immense, and Neville notes in her a cheerfulness that is hardly attributable to someone who's called _moaning_.

"Harry," she says, "you killed Tom Riddle. You have no idea how much this means to me. "

Harry, Neville notes, is uncomfortable with those words: he notices his hands twitching and his shoulders stiffening, as if he wants to defend himself from what those words imply. _It's not something to be proud of_ , Neville can almost read in his mind, _becoming a murderer_.

"Then maybe you can help us," Neville interrupts, physically putting himself between her and Harry. "Can you tell us if, since I asked you, you have seen that ghost I was telling you about?"

Myrtle, who apparently hadn't noticed Neville yet, immediately stops smiling. Her face is paralyzed, immobile. "...why do you want to know?" she finally asks, almost through gritted teeth, as if to say it was costing her a lot of effort.

It is Harry who answers that question before Neville can. "Because we want to help her," he says, "and because... because I want to personally apologize to her. She died because of me. "

"Harry..."

“Neville, I know it had to be done, and I know that _technically_ you did it. But this does not justify the fact that she is dead. I... I feel guilty about it."

 _I'm the one that should feel guilty, not you_ , Neville would like to answer him, but he knows that doing it would be useless, because he has already tried it before and it hasn't helped. Harry has already decided it's his fault and nothing will change his mind.

Myrtle looks at them for a long moment, then she seems to solve any conflict in her head: her face becomes sad and sorrowful. "She is very scared, and also angry," she says. "I know where she is, but I'll come along with you, so that she won't attack you."

"So you can lead us to her?" Neville asks, and feels a little of the anxiety he had not confessed to Harry slip away from him. _I'll stop looking over my shoulder every time I pass a corridor_ , he thinks.

"Yes... although technically only Harry can do it. Or Ron, for what I have seen. "

Harry looks puzzled, then, suddenly, he must have understood what Myrtle meant, because he opens his eyes in obvious sign of surprise.

Neville, who has also understood, swallows loudly. "You mean..."

"...the Chamber," Harry ends up for him. "Nagini is in the Chamber of Secrets."

"She never moved from there, except to visit you," she says to Neville. "That's where you'll find her."

Neville looks at Harry, a _What do we do now?_ clearly written on his face. He wants to find Nagini, of course, but _the Chamber..._

Harry makes the decision for them. "If she's there, then that's where we'll go," he says, "and we'll go now."

***

He has heard of the Chamber of Secrets many times.

The first time was obviously in his second year. At that time it was the main topic of the school, because of the writing on the walls with blood and the petrified people. He still remembers professor McGonagall's lesson when she talked about the history of the founders and the monster of Salazar and... well, those are certainly not good memories.

After that year, the topic often came back with Ginny. Her relationship with that place is full of hatred and fear, yet she once confessed to Neville (he still remembers it, it was the night of the Yule Ball and he was happy to have his crush of the time in his arms) that she wanted to ask Harry, one day, to accompany her back there, to help her overcome the fear that that place still created in her.

She never did ask, Neville knows, and now he has the irrational thought of asking Harry _Wait, let's call Ginny, she needs to see this place too_.

Obviously he doesn't, because judging from what Myrtle had told them, there is no need to have so many people around Nagini, and yet a part of him would like to have had his best friend there with him: the strong, brave Ginny that faces her fears instead of avoiding them.

Because he knows, he remembers it well from the story that Ron and Hermione had told of the day of the battle: they went down to the Chamber, and there was still the skeleton of the basilisk underneath.

He wonders what it will be like to see it as Harry says the words to move the sink and open the corridor. Ron said that he is a huge skeleton, that his fangs are still poisonous, and that there is no bad smell apart from stagnant water - _Thanks to Merlin_ , Neville thinks, _at least there is no rotten flesh left_. He doesn't know if he would have handled the image of the huge snake in its entirety - he wonders how Harry, at just 12 years old, fought it, and his admiration for him grows a little more.

But in the end, in a completely turnabout, what impresses him the most is the snake skin scattered in the corridor before the Chamber, the massive metal door in which are engraved snakes that move only if you order to in Parseltongue, and the huge hall full of snake sculptures and Salazar's huge face at the bottom. In comparison to all of this, the immense skeleton of the basilisk seems almost nothing, if not a white spot in the middle of the dark environment of the room.

***

They find Nagini after a very short time, crouched under the statue of Salazar. Neville, who had spent a week in close contact with the ghosts, only now notices how aesthetically different Nagini is from them. Her color is darker than that of the other spirits: generally, the ghosts are translucent, on the white side, while Nagini is so dark that you can hardly see what's on the other side of her.

Neville wonders if it's the influence of the curse she had in life, or if it depends on the fact that she died as an animal, but he doesn't have time to ponder that Nagini looks up, notices them, and scrutinizes Harry very intensely.

"Naga," Mirtilla approaches her, although Nagini's gaze never turns away from Harry's. "Harry and Neville have come to talk to you... they don't want to hurt you..."

"Harry Potter," Nagini whispers, as if she hasn't heard her. "The Chosen One. You were one of his, weren't you? Such as I was."

He hears Harry swallow loudly, and Neville, who feels the tension in the air, doesn't say a word.

"I remember it all. He used to tell me anything that came to his mind, and you were often on his mind, as you can imagine," she said, a hint of a smile on her face. "But that, that he didn't know. Only I did. I realized it the day I attacked a man in your Ministry, a few years ago, and you were in my head. "

"Then why didn't you tell him?" Harry asks, and to Neville it seems that he almost sounds angry.

"Because my instict told me to resent him, even when I feared him," she says with venom. "For what he had turned me. I felt that... _thing_ inside of me every day, every moment... "

"I think I did too," Harry says, "but I didn't know why it was that until the very last moment."

"Lucky you," she says. Then he looks at him like she’s searching for something. "How did you get rid of it without dying?"

"I didn't," he replies, "I died."

"How can you be still alive then?"

"It's complicated," Harry answers, and Neville, now more confused than ever, is trying his best not to interfere in their conversation even if he doesn't understand what it's actually going on.

"No it's not, isn't it? I know what he was searching in his quest to defeat you. I was alive when another dark wizard was searching for the same thing."

Harry's eyes widen. "You know!"

"I do," she says, "and I have to ask: what are you going to do with them, now that you are the Master?"

 _The Master?_ _What's she talking about?_ Neville thinks, at the same time that Harry says: "Nothing. I put them away, never to be seen again. I won't use anything except the Cloak."

Nagini looks at him for a long time, almost seeing if he's telling the truth. Then she smiles. "You're a good one, Harry Potter," she says. Only then she looks at Myrtle. "Thank you Myrte, you were right, they won't hurt me"


	3. Chapter 3

His first real conversation with Nagini had not gone as Neville imagined it. At all.

He had thought that Nagini would scream at him, resent him for killing her, but the ghost that talked with him and Harry in the Chamber, after the first few minutes of questions to make sure they didn't want to hurt her, had been calm and friendly. She had wanted to know the other side of the war, what had really happened to Dumbledore ( _H_ _e was one of the few friends I had,_ it’s all she had said when they asked her about their relationship) and the Order in all the years she’d been with Voldemort.

 _(I was s_ _tuck with him_ , she had said with anger, _sourronded with people who wanted to please him, to stay with him_. _Death eaters. Who in their right mind would want to claim a title with **this** name? _ and Neville had agreed, and a doubt he hadn't really voiced even to himself had happily dissolved: that Nagini was a victim such as they were, not another Bellatrix eager to be with his Lord).

“Speaking of the order,” she had said at some point, “what about its symbol? where’s Fawkes?”

“He went away last year,” Harry has answered sadly. “When Dumbledore died.”

“Actually,” Neville had said at that point, almost a sensation more than a memory in his mind. “I think I saw him at the Battle.”

“Really?” Harry has asked. “I didn’t see him anywhere. Where did you see him?”

“I’m not sure… ”

“He was probably near Aberforth, protecting him,” had answered Nagini. “Fawkes is bound to the Dumbledore family. He comes when a member of the family is in great need...”

Nagini had said that last part that with such a evident sadness that not him nor Harry had commented on, but Neville is pretty sure that in both him and Harry that information had brought many questions. _Had Dumbledore been in need all this time?_

After that, it had appeared evident that Nagini didn’t want to talk anymore, so he and Harry had excused themselves and had gone away, with a promise to be back the next day, to talk some more.

“Thank you,” Nagini has answered them. “I’ll be upstairs, in the bathroom. There’s no need to come down here. It’s… this place is something I actually want to forget.”

 _Then why are you here?_ Neville had wanted to ask, but at the same time he had saw that Nagini’s shoulder - strange as it was, since she was a ghost - had dropped notably, like she could finally free herself from a great burden. He had remember the Friar’s words, then, about going to the place he feels more familiar to you, and that had brought forward even more question that Neville knew was not the right time to ask.

So he hadn’t said anything, only nodded, and he and Harry had gone away from the Chamber.

***

“That went well,” Neville hears Harry say from in front of him, on the stairs, when he and Harry are going back to Gryffindor Tower, and he understand that he and Harry are both thinking about their encounter with Nagini.

“Yeah,” he answers after a while, “more than I thought it would, considering that she had attacked me the first time…”

“Maybe she was only afraid,” Harry muses. “It would explain why Myrtle was hiding her.”

“I guess we’ll just ask her tomorrow.”

“Do you want to come back?” Harry says, turning towards him in front of the Fat Lady, an expression of surprise on his face.

“Sure I want,” Neville replies, “why? Didn’t we tell her we would come back?”

“Yes, but I thought that only I would go,” Harry says, and Neville feels a stab of pain before Harry notices and explains. “It’s not like that,” he says, his gesture frantic, “I just thought that, after seeing she’s not cross with you, you wouldn’t be interested.”

“Of course I am, Harry. Are you serious? I _killed_ that woman. An innocent woman.”

“It’s not your fault -”

“Yes it is!” Neville says, with a force that sorprende himself and Harry at the same time. He tries to regain some calm and goes on. “Even if I didn’t know she was a person, it’s someone I’ve _killed,_ Harry. Someone who had no control over herself for what she did. I want to spend time with her, to make sure she’s -” _not happy, never happy, how could she be happy when you_ **_killed_ ** _her_ “-ok,” is how he finishes that sentence, his thoughts heavy and difficult to articulate into words.

Harry looks at him with a look that makes almost easy to hear his thoughts: _I know what you’re feeling._ And Neville knows he does. He’s seen it many times since the war ended, and has been a witness first hand all the previous day.

 _All this guilt will be the death of him,_ Neville thinks, trying, he’s aware, to repress his own guilt with caring for Harry, something that has always helped him staying focused in the past. He decides in that moment that he would talk with Ron and Hermione tomorrow about this, and also about the fact that, after the battle, ha has rarely seen the three of them together. He’s been to occupied with Nagini to really noticed that, but now that he thinks about it he’s clearly obvious that there’s something wrong with them.

***

The next day, Headmistress McGonagall (and isn’t it strange to refer to her as _Headmistress_? Neville cannot stop himself thinking that Dumbledore should still be there, as Headmaster, not anyone else - last year he thought that with rage, because his murderer had taken this place, but now he just feels sadness) announces that a part of Hogwarts will not be repaired, but will remain exactly as it is, as a reminder of what happened for the future generations - “And for us,” she also says, “to remind ourselves to never let people like Voldemort rise to power again.”

(She’s not the only one to say his name nowadays, as Harry as always done: but it’s still a new thing, and he sees many people shudder at her words)

Neville, who’s seated between Ginny and Luna, notices immediately that Ginny tenses, almost drops her fork, and then goes on as nothing’s wrong. Typical Ginny, really. Neville would really like to help her, and in the first few days he did - Ginny was too vulnerable to put her guard up, Fred’s death still too fresh for her to be able to put all her pain inside, invisible to anyone else. But now it seems that Ginny has found a way to conceal it, to let McGonagall speech touch her without anyone else noticing, and Neville thinks that, with her like this, it will be a lot harder for him to truly help her.

 _Almost as difficult as it is with Luna,_ he muses, glancing at her on his other side. Her father’s death had been a hard blown to her, the news coming only after the battle was won, when he and her and Madam Pomfrey were attending the wounded: dead in Azkaban by the Kiss. Luna’s face had been what had really stuck the most in his mind after the battle: her look of complete shock, horror, and a painfully sensation of loss so strong to be unbearable to see. But instead of crying and despairing, as Ginny had done with Fred, Luna had been still as a statue, completely unresponsive to him or anyone else, for many days.

Now she’s a little better, even if she still doesn’t talk her expressions are becoming a little less… lifeless. He and Ginny had been sick with worry when Luna had been kidnapped last year, but that’s nothing comparing what they feel now: near her but so apart at the same time, unable to help her in any way. 

_So many of my friends need help_ , Neville thinks, glancing at the other table where Harry, Ron and Hermione are seated, not talking to each other, _and I’m just one._

***

“Did you find the ghost?”

Neville turns and sees the Grey Lady, right behind him, looking at the stairs he’s trying to rebuild after someone had broken them in two. Neville vaguely remembers that it was her mother to make them move, and wonders what she must feel to see her work, her home destroyed so much. _It must be a shock to her._

“Yes, I did,” Neville says, “and she’s fine. A bit shocked, I think, but that’s to be expected”

“Yes,” she says, “It was the same for me, many years ago”

“I spoke to her yesterday, and probably will do the same today. Nagini is -”

“What?”

Neville stops his words, because the Grey Lady has an expression on her face that seems surprised, and curious at the same time.

“Uhm, what?”

“What was her name, did you say Nagini?”

“Yes…”

“She was still alive? After all this time? Everybody thought she had died many years ago”

It’s Neville turn to tense, surprised himself. “What do you mean still alive? Did you know her?”

“Everybody here did,” the Grey Lady answers, “she worked here as a teacher. Kettleburn took her place after a few years, but she stayed behind to help him and other teachers when they were unavailable. You see, Hogwarts student at the time were considerably more than your years, so there was always need for a substitute teacher. _He…_ he has killed so many people that there has been no need in the last few decades”

Neville would later think about how Voldemort had profoundly impacted their society, more than what he had first imagined, but right now the only thing he’s able to say is: “Nagini taught here?”

“She came to Hogwarts in 1927,” the Grey Lady says, “and there was a battle here, in 1940, and we saw an Obscurus going towards her… we all thought she had died that day”*

Neville is completely blown out from this information, and realizes that he doesn’t really know much about her. _The only thing I know is that she was a maledictus, and that she was a friend of Dumbledore… which kind of makes sense, if she taught here… _

He needs to ask her more about her life, to understand better why no one knew that Voldemort’ snake was a woman that, apparently, everyone at Hogwarts knew. He’s not sure Nagini will answer him, but it’s worth a try.

 _I felt that... thing inside of me every day, every moment…_ Nagini had said yesterday in the Chamber, so sad and lost and angered, and Neville thinks that that girl deserves to have the world recognize her as another victim of the Dark Lord, instead of his most formidable weapon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Nagini's story is also mentioned in my other story 1940 (https://archiveofourown.org/works/16819279) but it will be told in many more details here. Just so y'know, this fic and the other one come from the same universe: my headcanon of what will happen in the next FB movies :)


	4. Chapter 4

Just before dinner, Neville goes to the Room of Requirement.

It’s been a home for him and for many other students for all the past year, but in the past two weeks nobody had really used it anymore. It had been a place of peace and safety at the time, but now it only served as a painful reminder of the year they’ve all lived, trapped and scared for their life.

They had some good moments there though, and Neville smiles, thinking about the day he, Ginny and Luna had tried to steal Gryffindor’ sword from the headmaster office. It had been a failure, and they had been caught, but Snape, instead of sending them to the Carrows, had given detention to Hagrid instead. The others had given them an impromptu feast as they returned from the detention, thanking Merlin they were alive and unscattered.

_It was barely October,_ Neville thinks now, entering the Room, _and yet we were already so afraid._

He tries to put everything behind, focusing on the reason why he’s here: to search an album on which every professor who has ever taught at Hogwarts is mentioned, in order to find more about Nagini.

A few hours ago he’d decided to just ask her, but the more he had thought about it, the better he had understood that he didn’t want to do that. Nagini, for the short time he had known her, had seemed withdraw with information on her past, and he thinks that maybe asking her about it would not be wise - not so soon, at least. Furthermore, he’s curious about the fact that everyone had thought her dead… 

_We all thought she had died that day_ the Gray Lady had said, in a battle that, as far as he remembers, is not mentioned in his history book. He could be wrong about it, of course, but he’s pretty sure that Grindelwald - and it must have been him, in 1940 he was at the verge of his success - had never attacked England, and especially Hogwarts. How could he, really? Hogwarts it’s a fortress. And most of all, he feared Dumbledore.

_Feared,_ Neville thinks sarcastically, _is not the right term now, isn’t it?_ He had been shocked, as everyone else had been, when he had found out about their summer romance, but the thing had been quickly dismissed once the war had started. _Maybe Nagini knows something about their story,_ he muses as he opens the book the Room has given him, _they were friends after all…_

Then he goes to the section of teachers of ‘900, and doesn’t think about much else.

***

Objectively speaking, he already knew how pretty Nagini was.

Neville had noticed it, of course he had: ghosts are not people anymore, but once they were, and their face and body are the same they had when they died. Nagini has also a different colour from the other ghosts - or it would be more exact to say that she _has_ a colour when the others do not: a dark grey, one that defines her outline and clearly defines when her body ends and the background stars. 

So, objectively, he knew. But seeing her photo from when she was alive still takes him completely by surprise.

Because Nagini is _beautiful._

The photo has been taken in the first few days of her job, and it’s a photo group: Neville recognizes a few faces ( _Merlin, that woman is really McGonagall? And that man Dumbledore? They were so young!)_ but not many, and there, in the photo, with one of Dumbledore’s arm on her shoulder, there’s Nagini.

_1928_ is the photo caption, and Neville sees Nagini smiling awkwardly at the camera, and then laughing with everyone else at something that’s happening behind the camera - he sees some coins shatter, and a black little creature running (maybe a niffler?) but nothing more than that.

There are some informations about Nagini, he’s pretty sure of it, but he can’t stop looking at the photo: at this girl that seems so shy, so sweet, and so beautiful. _She’s not the woman I’ve met,_ he thinks, noticing that she also looks a bit younger, albeit not much. _This Nagini looks so… so different._

He wonders what had happened to her to change so much, and then he reasons that a better question would be what _hadn’t_ happened to her: after becoming a snake permanently, and becoming one of the most important chess pieces in Voldemort’s thumb, he’s pretty sure everyone would lose their sweetness and happiness. 

_Her life had not been easy,_ he thinks sadly, and with this thought he’s finally able to tear his eyes from the photo and read the few information that it’s been written about her.

_Nagini, no middle name or surname. Born in 1908, Indonesia. Mother and father unknown. She’s the new Care Of Magical Creature teacher, succeeding professor Articus_ _Pokeby after his retirement._ _Even without a valid school certificate to prove her knowledge, she had worked at the Circus Arcana for a long time, so she has been always surrounded by beasts and knows how to care for them. She was highly recommended for the job by Newt Scamander, the famous author of “Fantastic Beasts and where to find them”, that has been put in the Hogwarts book’s curriculum since last year._

_***_

_Scamander recommended her,_ Neville thinks surprised, closing the door of the Room, _she must have been really good._

He wonders absently how she and Scamander had met - as far as he knows now Scamander lives in America with his wife and family, but he doesn’t know much about the man’s life before - and how it all plays with the battle that had apparently happened here.

Of this famous battle, there’s no mention in the book: he will need to search it a bit more, but he has the feeling that from this search he will come out empty-handed. _Maybe I should involve Hermione in this,_ he muses _, it would also be the right time to talk to her about the situation with Ron and Harry._

Hermione had been the first friend he’d ever had, during the first ride on the Hogwarts express, and he will never forget how she went looking for Trevor compartment after compartment like it was nothing when he, shy Neville, could not even look at many people in the eyes without stuttering and blushing. 

_It’s about time I return the favour,_ he thinks, putting the book on the nightstand near his bed and going down on the Great Hall for dinner.

He wonders why there’s no mention of Nagini being a maledictus in the book. _Maybe it was a secret,_ Neville thinks, _that would explain why nobody knew about her._ But how many people knew that, apart from Dumbledore? Did Scamander know? Did _McGonagall_ know? In the photo they were together, they were colleagues: if Dumbledore knew, there’s a good chance she also did.

_Or maybe not,_ he thinks, glancing at the other table, where Headmistress McGonagall is eating and conversing with Hagrid and Molly Weasley. _Dumbledore had always known everything after all._

It’s only after he sits and starts eating that he notices that tonight, for the first time since the battle, all of Dumbledore’s Army members (and then some) are seated together at the same table. He, Luna, Ron, Hermione, Harry, George, Angelina, Dean, Katie, Seamus, Percy, Ernie, Bill, Fleur, Hannah, Susan, Cho, Padma, Parvati, Terry, Michael, Lee, Colin, Alicia, Justin - 

_\- Wait,_ “Where’s Ginny?” he asks, seeing that she’s not here.

“She didn’t want to eat,” replies Luna, “and she said that she wanted to be alone.”

Neville swallows, looks at Luna, and nods a bit: _we’ll go looking for her after dinner,_ is what they say to each other just with looks, without any words, as they’ve done since last year, when every spoken word could be heard and reported to someone who shouldn’t have heard it.

After all, there’s no need for them to speak: they both know perfectly well where she went.

***

“I can’t go with you tonight, Harry”

Harry looks at him a bit surprised, and Neville concedes that’s probably to be expected. After having insisted yesterday that he wanted to meet Nagini again, he’s going to stand back tonight. “Me and Luna are going to find Ginny,” he explains, and Harry understands and nodes. 

“Do you want me to say something to her?”

Neville thinks about it for a moment. “No,” he says, “only if she asks where I am please tell her”

“Will do,” Harry says, and Neville sees his form retrying to the stars.

Luna, who’s been waiting for him at the entrance of the school, is levitating a package: Neville smells it from afar and recognized what’s inside it immediately.

“Cinnamon rolls?” 

“Ginny will be hungry,” that’s all Luna says, like going to the house elves and asking for her best friend’s favorite sweet when she’s having a breakdown after skipping dinner is not… _sweet._

“There are some for us too,” she continues, when she and Neville cross the courtyard. “If Ginny doesn’t eat them”

“I won’t count on it,” Neville jokes, and he and Luna give each other a little smile before sobering up and continuing towards their destination.

The graveyard.

Neville still remembers vividly the day after the battle, when everyone was still here and more people were coming to Hogwarts for the funerals. It had been decided that the people who had died that night would be buried near the school, when Dumbledore's tomb was collocated. A big, white pillar stood in the center of the graveyard (an identical copy of the one that’s been put in Berlin in 1945, after the end of Grindelwald’s terror) and here people wrote all the names of people who had died not only that night, but in all the second war against Voldemort.

(Harry’s _scribe*_ had written “Severus Snape” with river of tears on his eyes, and Neville didn’t understand it, not completely, but it had brought home to him how much Harry really cared about the man. 

Even McGonagall had cried, and also many others, for a man who’s been so hated in life. Neville had not cried, but not because he didn’t want to - that day he felt like he had done nothing but crying in her Grandma’s arms, before accompanying her home and returning to Hogwarts to help with the damage - but because he had been too shocked to see his usually closed-up friend crying so openly, something that he had done only for Dumbledore’s funeral.

He had realized, after, that the ramification of Harry’s relationship with Snape, and also the one he had with Dumbledore, it’s something that he will probably never understand)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *charm invented by me, I imagine it as a black liquid that engraves on stone.


	5. Chapter 5

They find Ginny seated in front of Fred’s tomb, a sunflower on the ground - bright yellow surrounded by darkness, an almost poetic image - and dried tears on her face.

(It has been her _scribe_ , not George’s, to put Fred’s name in the white pillar. It was supposed to be him, but at the last moment his wand had fallen down of his hand, and he had started crying too much to be able to do anything else. Mrs and Mr Weasley had gone to help him with his brothers, and Ginny had stepped forward - a brave expression on her face - and had picked up her wand, in order to write the name of a brother she had lost only the day before.)

“George hasn’t been here since the funeral,” Ginny says as a greeting to them, even if her eyes are still nailed to Fred’s headstone. Luna sits beside her and takes her hand, and Neville does the same with her other hand. “He’s not coping well.”

 _Neither are you,_ Neville would like to say, but he knows that with Ginny it’s almost impossible to talk about her problems without her first opening up, so he scratches it. “We’ll help him,” he says instead.

“Yeah,” Ginny answers, the back of her hand that gives up Neville’s to dry the corner of her eyes. A bit of soil goes on her cheek and, Neville notices, also on his own hand. 

(It’s strange that those details remind him of a different time, when he could lose himself in caring for plants and don’t feel all the heaviness that he constantly feels now)

He and Luna both look at her but don’t say anything else, and for a while there’s only silence. The silence of a graveyard, and of three friends seated on the ground, pondering about what’s been and what could never be again.

Neville notices that Luna’s looking at her father's tomb, a closed-up expression on her face. Ginny’s head is on her shoulder, their hands joined, and for a moment Neville feels like an intruder, spying on a moment between two grieving people that feel something that Neville cannot understand. _Two of my parents are alive, even if they’re not really here,_ he thinks, _and the other one… She’s dead. I’ve never met her. I don’t know how it feels to lose someone you loved._

After a moment, the feeling passes: he may not understand it, but he’s their friend, their _best_ friend, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t do the best he can to help them.

“Tell you what,” he says, “why don’t we eat the rolls Luna had brought? Maybe we could go to the lake?”

“Did you brought cinnamon rolls?” Ginny asks.

“You’ve skipped dinner,” that’s all Luna says, and as soon as they all lift up Ginny hugs Luna tightly. There’s a little smile on Luna’s face that Neville feels incredibly grateful for. 

***

“You’re still awake”

Neville raises his face from the book he took from the Room of Requirement, finding Harry that has just now entered the Common Room.

“Yes,” he says, “I was waiting for you.” _And distract myself from all the memories of the war._

Harry nods, and goes to sit next to him on the couch. There’s no fire in the fireplace: it’s spring, and it’s really hot and humid outside, even in the nights, and Neville in that moment wishes that it could be already winter, when all the castle will be repaired and a new year of school will have already begun. _And this place will finally stop looking like a tomb and more like the house it always was for everyone._

“She asked about you,” Harry says, “and I told her what you asked me to say.”

“Good,” Neville replies, “thank you. I’m sorry I couldn’t come.”

“How’s Ginny?” Harry timidly asks, like he thinks he has no right to ask that question.

In a sense, he’s right. Since the war he and Ginny had barely spoken, and never when they were alone. It certainly doesn’t help that Ginny is staying with Luna in Ravenclaw tower every night - Neville remembers how they used to sleep together in the Room of Requirement, and how alone Ginny had felt when Luna had been kidnapped after the Christmas break - and that usually she’s always with someone, but Neville has to admit that Harry had not tried much to have a conversation with her.

In fact, the only person Harry has actively spoken to, as far as Neville has seen, is Neville himself. Even when he had told everyone the year with Ron and Hermione, and even during the funerals, he had seemed distant and isolated, and Neville always saw him putting all his efforts into repairing Hogwarts rather than interact with other people. _I wouldn’t be surprised if the only other person he had a lengthy conversation except me was Nagini._

“She’s going on,” Neville says, answering Harry’s question. “Me and Luna are here for her.”

“You are, aren’t you? That’s how it’s been all this year for you? The three of you together against everything?”

“Yeah,” Neville answers. “I mean, we’ve always been friends, but this year… has really solidified this.”

“Living near-death experience together does that to people,” Harry says with a little smile on his face, and Neville can practically hear the _believe me, I would know_ at the end of the sentence. But his smile doesn’t stay on much: after a few seconds it drops, and Harry looks tired and sad.

Neville knows that it has something to do with his coldness towards Ron and Hermione. It has to be. But while he wants to help me he doesn’t know if he should pray. He and Harry are friends, yes, but aren’t close: they are starting to get closer with all this Nagini’s story, but nowhere near much, Neville supposes, for Neville to just ask Harry what’s wrong.

***

In the end, Neville chooses a compromise. _I can’t ask what’s wrong, but I can show him that I’m here if he wants to talk._ “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not tonight,” Harry says, a grateful look on his face. “Maybe some other time.”

Neville nods, and thinks that it could be their clue for going to bed, when he suddenly realized that he has not told Harry anything about his finding of Nagini’s life, and that he does not know about what she and Harry had spoken tonight.

“How’s Nagini?” he asks.

“Like yesterday,” Harry shrugs. “We talked mostly about Voldemort”

“How much does she remember about her time with him, you know?” 

“All of it,” Harry says, and Neville is not surprised. _I remember it all,_ she had said to them yesterday (the day before yesterday to be exact, since midnight had passed an hour ago) but Neville was not sure about anything of the conversation she and Harry had had in the first few minutes they had been in the Chamber. _Too many things didn’t make sense to me._

“Do you think she feels… guilty?”

“Who wouldn’t,” Harry comments. “Being so close to Voldemort, killing so many people… killing Snape…”

“You don’t blame her for that, do you?” Neville asks, blaming himself in the process for forgetting about that particular story. _How could I forget this, before asking Harry to help me?_ Neville thinks. _And after seeing how much Harry cares about him?_

“No, of course I don't’,” Harry says, “she wasn’t herself.”

 _If what I’ve seen it’s true, she hasn’t been in a long time,_ Neville thinks sadly, and he’s immensely grateful for Harry being the man he is, compassionate and brave. Not many would have seen this as he does, but of course Harry’s Harry, capable of love and forgiveness beyond measures.

“I agree,” Neville says, before inquiring. “Has she told you anything about her life… before? Or has Dumbledore?”

“No, neither of them. I only know that she was a woman once and that she was Dumbledore’s friend. Why?”

“Because I may have found something.”

“Really?” Harry asks surprised, and Neville nods, and shows Harry the book. 

“Look at this,” he says, pointing at the picture of the teachers of 1928.

Harry looks, and Neville notices that he reads Nagini’s profile and looks at her picture with visible surprise. “She taught here?”

“I was surprised just as you are when I found out,” Neville answers, “but there’s more.” 

***

Neville goes on to explain her mysterious death by an Obscurus in a battle in 1940 that it’s not recorded in their history book. “But of course she had not died,” Neville finishes at the end of his talk, and Harry looks at him perplexed.

“That’s really strange. Are you sure that the Gray Lady was telling the truth?”

“I don’t see why she would lie. She doesn’t seem one to prank, does she?”

“No, you’re right,” Harry says, “but a battle? Here? Are you sure that it’s not mentioned in _A History of Magic_?”

“No, and Binns has never taught us anything about it,” Neville answers, “but well, he didn’t tell us anything except the Goblin Rebellion, so that’s to be expected.”

“What about _Hogwarts: a History_? It’s mentioned there?”

“I don’t know,” Neville says, and he and Harry both look at each other before Neville reaches the obvious conclusion: “We should ask Hermione about it. She knows that book better than the author at this point.”

Harry, who was on the verge of saying something, shuts up at his words. His face becomes pained for an instant, and Neville regrets having suggested it.

“Or maybe we could read it on our own,” he says timidly. 

“No, no, we should ask her,” Harry says sadly. “I’ll have to talk to her and Ron sooner or later.”

“Harry, I know you said you didn’t want to talk about it, but… did something happened?”

“Apart from all of this?” Harry says moving his right hand, and Neville talks that he’s talking about the war, their lives… everything, really. “No. I’ve just figured out something that it should have been obvious from the beginning.”

“What is it?”

Harry looks at him for a long moment, and after a while sighs. “I don’t really want to talk about it,” he says devastated. “Forgive me.”

“There’s nothing to forgive, Harry,” Neville says sincerely. “Just know that I’m here for you.”

“Thanks,” he answers, and then, in an unexpected and out of character gesture, he hugs Neville. Harry’s not one for physical contact, Neville knows that, so he feels both honored and scared to frighten him if he hugs back. But in the end, his doubt is quickly dissolved when he hugs back and Harry seems melting in this embrace.

“You don’t need to thank me,” Neville says. “I’m your friend.”

Harry breaks the hug and looks at Neville. “And I’m yours,” he says. “We’ll figure out all of this mess with Nagini, right?”

“Yeah,” Neville answers, and together he and Harry go up to their room to sleep before the next day starts.


	6. Chapter 6

The third week after the battle starts today, and seating here in the Great Hall Neville still feels, sometimes, like the war has never ended.

He knows he’s not alone in this: he sees it in his classmates, in his professors, in whoever has decided to stay after the battle for helping to repair Hogwarts. They look like tense warriors, ready to battle again at the first sight of the enemy, and at the same time too wounded to still be fighting.

He wonders when, and if, these feelings will stop.

There are not many people here, most having decided to return to their families after everything that’s happened, but still a good number it’s here, and Neville is confident that between all of them helping out Hogwarts will be up and running for September way before summer really settles.

 _Hogwarts maybe will be, but what about us?_ He wonders, looking at everyone near him. The whole Weasley family (but it’s not whole, isn’t it? George’s face says it clearly enough) is one of the few families who has decided to stay permanently at Hogwarts until everything’s sorted out, but others, like his grandma, has decided to return home after the funerals.

His eyes wander around until they see the profile of Aberforth Dumbledore, talking quietly with McGonagall and Hagrid. He also has decided to stay, and Neville can’t help but feel grateful for all this man had done for them in the past year, sending food and water when they had needed them in the Room of Requirement. and since there were many of them, and the number had grown each passing day, feeding them had not for sure be an easy task. But under his ragged looks and gruff personality, Neville thinks, there lies a good and brave man, one who would not hesitate to do what’s best even when there’s no hope left.

 _I wonder if he knew Nagini too, like his brother,_ Neville wonders, and for a moment he’s tempted to ask. Nagini had revealed to them Fawkes’ story, something that no one had never known before as far as Neville thinks, suggesting that maybe she new Dumbledore and his family better than most. _He was one of the few friends I had,_ Nagini has said, and something tells him that the other way around was also true.

He realizes also that he could ask about her to many people, other than Aberforth. The Headmistress surely knew her, and Dumbledore’s portrait too, and all the ghosts. He doesn’t know the other professor’s age, but he’s sure that Hagrid would have at least known her as a professor, since he’s Voldemort’s age, and Voldemort had met Nagini here... 

***

_...or maybe not. Maybe she taught when he wasn’t in school, and he met her later. I can’t just assume that Voldemort met her here because they were both at Hogwarts at some point in their life_. _I’ve to check the dates. I don’t know exactly when Voldemort went to school._

Even when his mind derails about dates and her connection with Voldemort, Neville knows that he won’t ask anyone about Nagini. If Nagini had wanted to be outed to the people who knew here in life, she would have met them already, when instead she had chosen to go find him, of all people. He doesn’t know why she did that, but he wants to respect her decision, and maybe talk to her about it.

 _So I’ve already ruled out that I can’t ask her directly without maybe losing her, and for the same reason I can’t ask anyone else_. _What can I do, then?_

 _We’ll figure out this mess with Nagini,_ Harry had said to him yesterday, and maybe that’s the answer to his musing: trying to find a way, with Harry, to unravel her past without destroying the fragile connection that both of them have with her in the process. 

It sounds like a good plan for him, so he searches Harry with his eyes in the hope to catch him and trying to talk to him before they all start with the reparation… but Harry’s nowhere to be seen.

“Have you seen Harry?” he asks Seamus, who’s seated near him and has for the moment stopped talking with Dean.

“Yeah, this morning,” Seamus answers. “He told me that he would be all day with Mrs. Tonks and his godson.”

Neville nods, remembering vaguely that Harry had received an owl a few days ago (one of many, of course, but the Headmistress had, per Harry’s request, put a ban on the letters he receives, giving to him only ones from people who actually know him instead of the undoubtedly thousands of fan mails and hate mails that had been sent to him since the end of the Battle) and that probably it was from Andromeda Tonks. Neville has never met the woman himself, and with her being Bellatrix’s sister Neville wasn’t really inclined to, but he had heard many good things about her, and most of all she’s Tonk’s mother, and Neville remembers the woman fondly.

(Seeing her and professor Lupin lie dead in the middle of the Great Hall had been terrible, and Neville had spent time repairing their wounds and cleaning them for the burial. He still remembers her vibrant pink hair, so jarring with her lifeless body)

 _I’ll talk to him tonight, then,_ he muses, and resumes eating before starting the day.

  
  


***

Neville walks the path from the Great Hall to Myrtle’s bathroom after dinner with uncertainty. He wants to see Nagini, to talk to her, but he’s not sure he will be welcomed without Harry, and he’s acutely aware, that, apart from their first encounter, they still have to breach the subject of him killing her, almost three weeks ago. _Myrtle hid her because she was afraid of us… what kind of person that makes me?_

The bathroom is unoccupied except for Nagini, whose serious and hard expression softens as soon as Neville steps foot into the room.

“Hi,” he says, feeling like an idiot for not having thought about a more clever opening.

“Hello Neville,” Nagini answers. “How’s your friend?”

It takes Neville a moment before he understands that she’s talking about Ginny. “Better,” he answers, “she’s moving on”

Nagini nods, then asks “what about you?”

The question takes Neville by surprise. “Me? I’m… ok.

Nagini makes a strange noise, like she’s not sure if she believes him. “And what about your head?”

“My… head? What do you - oh,” Neville starts, before remembering what she’s referring to: how, the first time they had met, she had thrown herself at him and, in the force of the impact, Neville’s head had slammed into the headboard pretty bad. “It’s… it’s fine. Everything’s ok.”

Nagini nods, but her expression becomes suddenly sadder. “I’m sorry for what I did,” she says. “I was scared and confused… not that it excuses my actions, but -”

“You’re sorry?” Neville interrupts, and has only a moment for feeling bad for his rudeness before the meaning behind Nagini’s words returns to sink in. “No, you have nothing to be sorry for. I mean, it was a pretty justified reaction, after I…” _After I killed you,_ Neville finishes in his mind, looking down on the floor, but does not say anything, because even thinking about it brings a lump in his throat. 

Forcing down the trauma of killing a human life is becoming more difficult each passing day. He can most of the time bury it for his friend’s sake, but right now, when he’s talking to the woman he killed, it becomes impossible to ignore. Neville feels crushed by guilt.

“...after what I did to you,” he says in the end, still looking down, and it’s only because of that that he doesn’t notice Nagini coming closer to him, and putting her hand on his shoulder.

Neville looks up surprised, and Nagini quickly retreats her hand. Neville has the insanely urge to ask _No, don’t to that,_ but before he could do that Nagini says: “You did nothing wrong, Neville”

***

  
  


_Nothing wrong?_ Neville thinks, before whispering “I killed you,” like that could explain everything. _And it does._ _I did_ ** _everything_** _wrong._

“It was the right thing to do,” Nagini says, not making any sense whatsoever to him. “I don’t blame you”

“How can you not?”

“Voldemort had to die,” Nagini answers. “And that wouldn’t have been possible had I lived. Harry told me yesterday that he asked you to kill me that day, is that right?”

 _Why did you need to die?_ Neville wonders, at the same time that he answers “Yes, that’s right”

“So you see, you are not to blame,” Nagini goes on, before looking at Neville with a soft smile, probably seeing from his face how he’s crumbling inside. She put her hand on Neville’s shoulders again, this time with certainty, and squeezes his shoulder lightly. 

At this moment Nagini looks so much like the photo he had seen that he almost thinks she’s alive in front of him, beautiful and lovely like she was the day of the photo, and not a ghost 70 years after. Her smile is so small and so sincere that Neville is momentarily blinded by it.

“I... “ he says, sincerely moved. “Thank you.” He knows that his guilt will not stop after tonight, that it will probably be a long time before he will be able to move on, but knowing that Nagini doesn’t blame him it’s the help he needed in order to do that, and for the first time after meeting her Neville feels hopeful that he will recover.

It’s at that moment that Harry enters the room looking disheveled and in a hurry. “Hi,” he says to both of them.

“Hi Harry,” Neville says, breaking eye contact with Nagini, something that he finds very difficult to do at this moment. “is everything ok?”

“Not really,” Harry answers, and then looks at him and Nagini like he’s torn between speaking or not. “Can I interrupt? I don’t know what you were talking about”

Neville has the irrational urge to say _No, you can’t, our conversation is important and private,_ but he knows he wouldn’t really say anything of the sorts, and besides, Harry looks so wounded up that Neville instantly worries for him. “Of course you can,” he says eagerly, “what’s wrong?”

“It’s just that I’ve found out only today, and Andromeda asked, and I…” Harry says in a confusing manner, before looking at Nagini. “Can I ask for your advice, Nagini?”

“My advice?” Nagini asks surprised, and Neville feels surprised too, since he was sure that Harry was here to talk to him, not to her. “Yes, of course you can,” she continues, “how can I help?”

“It’s… it’s Malfoy,” Harry answers, and Neville feels his stomach turn at the mention of that family. “Their trial is the day after tomorrow, and I’ve been called as a witness. I… I need your memories of them, Nagini. Of their time with Voldemort.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've officially created the series for this story, expect more things to come!
> 
> I would like to have feedback on the story, so please lurkers don't be shy and tell me what you think :)

Neville excuses himself after a few minutes.

He feels resentful for Harry for barging in his conversation with Nagini and making him pretty much go away (not that he did that, on the contrary, he had tried to convince Neville to stay many times, going so far to say that there was no need to speak about the Malfoys if it made Neville uncomfortable) but on the other hand he knows that his feelings are unjustified.

That Harry is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the Malfoys’ trial, and he needs all the help he can get. 

Those trials, instead of being held behind closed doors like the ones from the first Voldemort war had been (Kingsley’s doing, and Harry had been very happy about it) are opened to a selected circle of people: family of the accused and the victim, close friends, and interested parties of the trial itself. Everyone is heard, especially the accused, until an unanimous verdict (and not one for majority) is reached. 

(Neville, truth be told, doesn’t know what to think about this new system: he only hopes that no one will ever come ask him to be part of one).

Harry, as someone who has claimed to have had the help of Narcissa Malfoy during the final battle, and for having said that Draco had helped him when he, Ron and Hermione were captured and brought at Malfoy Manor, was of course already part of the trial itself. But Neville knows that, apart from those two particular instance, he wouldn’t have be opposed to an harsh sentence, especially for the patriarch Lucius.

“But Andromeda, this afternoon, had asked me to defend her sister’s family side,” Harry has said to him and Nagini. “And I don’t know what to do. I need to know more of them. That’s why I’m asking you.”

Nagini had seem distressed by this, and she and Harry had started talking about their time with Voldemort, even before Draco was ever born.

But Neville couldn’t hear more than that: Malfoy is someone Neville despises - the bullying, the arrogance, not to mention his connection with the people who had killed one of his parents and tortured the other two to insanity would be enough reasons to dislike anyone, but Luna’s kidnapping is what had really sent him into his “hate” category.

But apart from his personal feelings, Malfoy is a Death Eater. He’s only eighteen, but aren’t they all? _Why should he be justified because of his age, when we fought the whole year and are just children ourselves?_

He goes to the Gryffindor quarters still fuming, full of repressed rage that he doesn’t know how to stop feeling. _His people kidnapped Luna,_ he thinks walking the stairs to their dormitory, _and he may not have been part of it, but why didn’t he free her then? If he’s so deserving of second chances?_

He goes to bed, but sleep comes after a very long time.

***

The next day, at breakfast, Harry sits near him and says, rapidly, “I’m sorry”.

Neville looks at him and sees Harry’s face full of guilt, and that’s enough to put everything that happened yesterday night behind him in an instant. “There’s nothing to be sorry for”.

“I didn’t want to barge in like I did, it’s just that, well, Andromeda had asked me a difficult thing to do”

“Don’t I agree,” Neville sighs. “Did Nagini help you?”

“Somehow, but I’m still torn,” Harry answers as soon as breakfast pops in front of them. “Let’s talk about something else, shall we? If we’re ok about what happened yesterday.”

“We are, and ok, let’s,” Neville answers, munching a piece of sausage. “I’d been thinking about how to find out more about Nagini”

“Mmm?”

“I don’t know about you, but I think that ask her directly or ask anyone who may have possibly known her, like McGonagall, is only going to upset her,” Neville sums it up.

Harry takes a few moments thinking about it, then nods. “Agreed. She doesn’t seem much forthcoming about personal things, and ask behind her back seems wrong.”

“Not to mention the fact that she hasn’t sought out anyone except me since the battle.”

“It looks like you’re special,” Harry jokes, and Neville has only a brief moment thinking _Yeah, how special I am, to be the one who has killed her,_ before squashing down this thought. 

“Anyway, this leaves us with a very few option. What do you propose?”

Harry thinks about it. “We could ask Dumbledore’s portrait, ask for his advice. It seems like they were close, so he probably would know how to talk to her. Or maybe we could investigate a bit more about the battle the Gray Lady told you about, and then go ask her for details about it.”

“Do you think that asking her about it will help?”

“Well, it can’t certainly hurt. And it’s for sure better than straightforward asking _How come no one knew you were Voldemort’s pet,_ don’t you think?”

“We won’t ask her that Harry!” Neville scolds mocking because he knows Harry’s not being serious. “Ok, let’s try this. If she doesn’t seem happy about speaking of it, we’ll ask Dumbledore.”

Harry nods, then his expression saddens. “We’ll better start today, tomorrow I will be all day at the trial.”

Neville squeezes Harry’s hand in a comforting gesture, and Harry shots him a grateful smile, then the two boys continue eating in silence for the next few minutes.

Neville hesitates before speaking again, because he knows what’s he going to say will upset Harry again. “We decided to speak to Hermione about the battle, remember? Do you still agree?”

Harry looks at the end of the table, when Hermione is speaking with Ron and Ginny. Neville thinks that there’s longing in his eyes, and sadness. “Yeah,” he says, “let’s find her after lunch.”

***

It’s painfully obvious, from Hermione’s expression, that she’s very surprised that Harry is speaking to her.

He and Harry have found her on the courtyard, meticulously repairing the stones that made up the entire colonnade with Cho. They were speaking, but after Harry had called her - “Hermione, we need your help!” - Cho had just give her a nod and continued alone, leaving Hermione free to speak to them.

Neville feels like an intruder for spying in such a private moment like this one obviously is. Hermione is looking at Harry with an expression full of shock and, after a few seconds, resentment.

“You don’t speak to me in weeks, and the first thing you say to me is that _you need help?”_

Harry looks at the ground visibly ashamed. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, sorry isn’t going to cut it, Harry James Potter!” Hermione explodes. “You’re going to apologize to me and to Ron and explain _in many details_ why you’ve been such an ass to us.”

“I will Hermione, ok, but right now we really need your help. Can you help us?” Harry looks at her and gestures to him and Neville, and Hermione looks at him for the first time, probably have just only realized that he’s here too.

He feels mortified.

“Neville? What - why do you need help?”

“We need to ask you something,” Neville speaks for the first time. “about _Hogwarts: A History_.”

Hermione looks torn, before her face softens. “This is not over,” she says menacingly to Harry, and then adds: “what do you want to know about it?”

“Have there been other battles here? Before this one?”

“In Hogwarts?” Hermione asks puzzled, and Neville nods. “The book mentions that it’s probable that Salazar and Gryffindor had gotten into a big fight when he left the school, making students going against each other, and mentions other fights like that one between students or professor. But an actual fight?”

“It should have happened in 1940,” Neville says. “And there was an Obscurus involved as well.”

“What? No, nothing of the sort is written in the book. Of those years there’s only the story of the Chamber.”

 _Had the Gray Lady really lied to me?_ Neville thinks, and Hermione looks at them suspiciously. “What do you know about it?”

“Almost nothing,” Harry answers, “we only know it because the Gray Lady told us it happened.”

“The Gray Lady? Why would she speak with you? She doesn’t talk to anyone.”

Neville feels panic swept through him. _W_ _hat do we do now? We can’t tell her about Nagini,_ he thinks looking at Harry, that fortunately answers for both of them. “She talks to me,” Harry says, “after the war. She’s grateful I’ve... _cleaned_ her mother’s diadem after Voldemort”

***

_What the hell he’s talking about?_ Neville thinks perplexed. He remembers pretty well that Harry had come here in Hogwarts and immediately ask for the diadem, so he doesn’t surprise him that he had found it - if someone could find a lost for thousands of years thing, that’s for sure Harry - but _cleaned?_ What’s that supposed to mean?

He realizes after a while that’s been lost on his thoughts, and that Harry and Hermione are still speaking

“...even if the diadem was destroyed?”

“It was an accident, you know it,” Harry says, a note of regret and anger in his voice. 

“Yes I do, but does her?”

“Yes, and she’s grateful anyway, I told you,” Harry answers, and Neville thinks he sounds somehow irritated. “Besides, she talks with Luna too.”

“Luna talks with _anyone_ , Harry,” Hermione answers with the same tone, and Neville thinks it’s time to stop them before it fully escalates in something more.

“Guys, no need to fight over this,” Neville says conciliatory. “We still don’t know what happened here.”

“You’re right Neville,” Hermione says and puts up a smile, even if it’s a bit forced. “So, you said the Gray Lady told you there has been a fight here? In 1940?” Hermione asks, and Neville nods. “Between whom?”

“We don’t know,” they say simultaneity. “We don’t know anything apart from the fact that someone died,” Neville adds, because that’s what the Gray Lady had told him, even if it had been a lie.

“Mmm, that’s so strange. Tell you what: I’m headed to the library after dinner to do a light reading. Do you want to come? We can see if we find something about it in the library”

Harry looks like he’s being torn apart. “I can’t,” he says, and when Hermione’s face falls he adds “but it’s not what you think, it’s… Neville, can you explain it to her tonight? I really need to do something else,” he says to Neville, and Neville understands that he needs to talk with Nagini about the trial but can’t say it in front of Hermione.

Hermione looks like she wants to argue, but Neville puts a stop on her. “Harry’s right, Hermione, believe me,” he says, and then he talks to Harry. “Alright, don’t worry, I’ll explain. But better be ready to explain all of that yourself later.”

Harry laughs, nods, and then looks at Hermione - his eyes, Neville notices, are full of emotions. “I will, Hermione… just, I’m glad to speak to you again.”

“Oh, Harry,” Hermione says with tears on her eyes, before she launches herself at him, putting her arms around him. Harry timidly hugs her too, and the drop his entire figure makes is so visible that he actually looks like a rock is been removed from his shoulder.

It’s just a hug, but Neville feels even more than before that he’s intruding in something that he shouldn’t.


	8. Chapter 8

After a few hours of work, before going to dinner, Neville thinks that it’s finally time to confront Harry about something that’s been bothering him.

“Harry,” he starts, “can I ask you something?”

Harry notices that his voice shows a bit of the insecurity that he feels, because he looks at him strangely. “Of course you can. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, it’s just that… you’re hiding something, aren’t you?”

Harry looks at him, visibly taken aback. “What?”

“It’s just that sometimes your discourses don’t make any sense,” Neville explains. “Not to me, at least. The first time we spoke with Nagini, and now with Hermione… there are moments I can’t follow because what are you saying doesn’t make sense. But it does, doesn’t it? It’s just that I don’t know what you’re really talking about.”

He feels like a lump in his throat has finally come out. He didn’t want to say anything because he feared that Harry could run away, and he still fears it, but today had been the last strawn and, if he was completely honest with himself, he feels offended that Harry would hide something from him while speaking in riddles in front of him.

Harry looks mortified, and Neville knows he’s hit his mark. “No, Neville, I don’t want to keep anything a secret,” he says. “It’s… it’s complicated, and it takes time, so that’s why I haven’t say anything before. But I don’t want you to feel left out, especially for all the things you’re doing for me now.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Yes you are,” Harry insists. “You’re being a friend and helping me… going on. Distracting me from my memories. Speaking to me. Not treating me like I’m a god or a bomb going to explode… you’re helping me a lot. And I don’t want you to feel like I want to keep you in the dark.”

Neville feels honoured by his words, even if he thinks that truthfully he’s doing nothing special. “I… thank you, Harry, for your words.”

Harry just shrugs. “It’s nothing but the truth,” he says. “As for those secrets… I can’t tell you tonight. It takes time. But maybe Nagini could tomorrow, when I’m on the trial. Or when I get back. I’ll ask her, ok?”

“Does Nagini know?” Neville asks puzzled, before remembering that in the first strange conversation Harry had had with her she had seemed to know what Harry was talking about.

“Yeah, she was part of it too,” Harry answers. “You’ll understand.”

Neville nods, relieved by Harry’s words. _He didn’t want to left me in the dark on purpose,_ he thinks with a smile on his face.

“Let’s go, best start to eat early tonight,” Harry says. “I have to find Nagini and Hermione will be waiting for you as soon as you finish”

“Let’s. I heard she’s quite fearful when someone is late.”

“You have no idea,” Harry laughs, and together they go down to the Great Hall.

***

Neville finds Hermione already in the library, a ton of volumes on the table.

“Hi,” Hermione says, “those are all the books of modern history that I could find. The year was 1940, correct?”

Neville nods, and Hermione hands him the first book, titled: _the Magic and Muggle side of History: a complete guide of the United Kingdom._

“A book on both magical and muggle history?” Neville asks surprised. “I didn’t know they existed.”

“It was written by a muggleborn a few years back,” Hermione replies. “After the first war with Voldemort. I’ve actually corresponded with him in third year.”

“Really? What for?”

“I wanted a perspective of being a muggleborn during the first war. There had been… the Chamber, y’know, and the monster who targeted muggleborn. I felt a bit scared, and had no adult to talk to, because no one could understand. So the next year I reached for him.”

“I’m sorry Hermione, I didn’t know,” Neville says sincerely. Hermione had always seemed, to him, as a very resourceful and strong girl, one who never felt scared and had always a back up plan. But he realizes that his opinion has been colored by her experience with Ron and Harry, not by he really interacting with her.

“There’s no need to be sorry,” Hermione says smiling. “It’s in the past. Even I didn’t know about your parents.”

The mention of his parents brings a too well knows sense of shame and guilt in him. He loves them, he really do, but the incredibly difficult situation they all live makes him approach them with a mix of fear and hesitation. _You should be proud of them,_ his Gran had said to him many times, _they fought bravely for you._

 _I would have preferred them coward, but sane,_ Neville had always thought, but now, after the war, he understands too well that sometimes you have no choice, that running away from it it’s a privilege that not many can afford.

“I didn’t want to bring bad memories,” Hermione says after Neville’s been silent too long. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, it’s ok,” Neville reassures her. “I’ve just thought that I haven’t seen them since the war. I feel bad for it.”

“There’s so much to do here, it’s perfectly normal. Besides… I’m guilty of the same crime. My parents are in Australia, and I haven’t even decided when I’ll go to see them.”

Neville knows that Hermione had made her parents forgive her, and understands that, albeit different, their situation have many similarities. “We’ll do it,” Neville says taking her hand, “just not today.”

“Not today,” Hermione nods, and after that they concentrate on reading the books.

***

After two hours, they give up.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Hermione sputters. “Absolutely no sense. There’s literally _everything_ about those years in it, Grindelwald’s war and all, but nothing about this supposed battle”

“Well, Rita Skeeter wrote about his romance with Dumbledore, and that’s also not mentioned here,” Neville reasons.

“But that’s different: that’s their private life, and I get it being a secret. But a battle? How can you keep a battle a secret? Imagine keeping our battle a secret.”

“Impossible,” Neville concludes. “It was too big.”

“So maybe the one in 1940 was smaller,” Hermione muses. “But still, why there’s no mention of it?”

Neville has no answers for her, and after a few moments of silence he says “Let’s go to bed, Hermione. We’re both tired. We’ll think of something tomorrow.”

Hermione nods, but doesn’t sit up. She just looks at him intently. “Before we go… can I ask you something?”

“Of course you can,” Neville answers, knowing already when this conversation is going.

“It’s about Harry. Do you know why he’s avoiding us?”

That question doesn’t take Neville by surprise, even if the conversation between Hermione and Harry surely had this afternoon. _Hermione had said that it’s Harry who’s not speaking with her… but I thought it was the other way around._ “Is this what’s happening?”

“Yes, since the war ended. Harry’s been more distant each day, and now he doesn’t speak to me and Ron at all. I hoped you knew why…”

“I don’t,” Neville says, “but If I’m to be completely honest, before today I was sure that you were the ones avoiding him. He… he’s been so sad when he thinks of you, I thought it was him being rejected.”

“Of course not! We love him! If he would just talk to us!” Hermione blurts out. “He’s isolating himself more and more. What can I do?” She asks in the end, her voice on the edge of tears.

“Harry did say that he will speak with you, didn’t he? Give him time.”

“I’m trying, and so is Ron, but this situation is driving us crazy.” 

Neville sees that Hermione is struggling, so he goes to hug her and comfort her in ways that words cannot provide. He feels Hermione relaxing and, after a while, detach herself from him. “What did Harry mean when he asked you to explain to me tonight? About why he’s not here?”

Neville had almost forgot it, and thinking about it now he knows that trying to make Hermione more relaxed was completely in vain. She’s going to be furious in a matter of minutes.

“Harry’s been summoned tomorrow, on the Minister,” Neville explains. “For the Malfoy’s trial.”

Hermione pales at that, but unfortunately for her Neville’s not finished. _And here it comes the worst part._ “Andromeda Tonks has asked him to defend them.”

“WHAT?” Hermione screams. “HOW DARE SHE?”

***

What follows is Ron being immediately called to the library and Hermione explaining to him everything.

“That… that woman!” Hermione says at the end. “How can she ask that of Harry? I thought she wasn’t on speaking terms with her sister!”

“She’s been talking to her since the battle,” says a voice from the library’s door, and here stands Harry. “And I wouldn’t recommend shouting.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Hermione replies bashfully, “but that’s still not right. Doesn’t she remember what the Malfoys have done?”

“Lucius gave my sister the diary,” Ron says, looking at Harry with a mixture of apprehension and longing. Neville realizes that it’s the first time that Ron has spoken to Harry in weeks.

“I know it,” Harry says. “I know everything. I’ve been thinking very hard about this.”

“What have you decided, then?” it’s Hermione asking, and Harry looks at her like it’s preparing himself for a fight.

“I won’t defend him. He’s got away with everything too many times, and as far as I’m concerned he’s guilty of everything. Narcissa’s another matter, and I’m not sure, but I think I’m going to defend her.”

He sees Ron squeeze his hands, and Hermione being tense, but nobody replies.

“As for Draco…” Harry gulps. “I’m going to defend him.”

“Have you lost your mind!?” Hermione asks, and Neville can’t help but feeling angry himself, even if he knew Harry was going to do it, since yesterday with Nagini. _Harry’s too good, of course he’ll give Malfoy another chance,_ he thinks, and tries to repress the fury that he feels at the idea of Malfoy returning to school as if nothing’s happened, the usual pompous arse that bullies everyone.

He barely registers Hermione and Ron arguing with Harry ( _You don’t know how he was in sixth year,_ Harry’s saying to them, _and the night when Dumbledore died,_ to which Ron replies _I don’t need to, I’ve known him the whole five years prior)_ but he can’t focus on them. Suddenly he feels the wall of the library closing around him, and he can’t breath.

 _Malfoy can go on after everything,_ he thinks, _and I will never forgive myself for killing Nagini._

As soon as he thinks that, he realizes what he needs to do. He needs to speak with Nagini. No, stracht that: he _wants_ to speak with her. Nagini’s who’s kind, gentle, who was so innocent in life and that has forgiven him without even him apologising to her - which, he realizes, has never done, and feels a stab of guilt for it.

 _I need to apologize,_ he thinks, _right now._

“I’m sorry,” he says, interrupting the three of them. “I need… I’ll go. If that’s ok.”

Harry looks at him concerned. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I… I’ll go. You know where.”

Harry nods, a little smile on his face. “See you tomorrow then.”

Neville goes, hearing only in passing Hermione asking _You know where,_ **_where_ ** _?_


	9. Chapter 9

He runs.

It’s not a conscious decision for his part, it’s just something that he needs right now. Run away from that scene, from that library, and run towards Nagini, to express how sorry he feels and to be with someone that says _You’re not to blame_ when she’d been killed and _What about your head?_ when she has more than justifiably (and just once) given in on her rage.

He just wants to talk to her, and not think about her mysteries, the life she had under Voldemort, the hell he lived last year: he only wants to speak with her like he would with a friend and, just for tonight, forget his demons and traumas.

When he finally comes to Myrtle’s bathroom he has to take a few breaths: Nagini hears, looks at him, and goes towards him.

“Neville! Harry told me you wouldn’t make it tonight… are you alright?”

“Let me just… one second…” he says, taking gulps of hair. “I wanted to speak to you.”

“To me?”

“Yeah… I…”

 _Now or never,_ he thinks, looking at her lovely face, of a grey so dark that he can, for just a moment, delude himself that she’s _alive,_ and not see the tap behind her that opens to the Chamber.

 _She didn’t deserve any of it,_ he thinks sadly, before saying “I’m sorry for your death.”

Nagini opens her mouth, but Neville stops her before giving her a chance to say what he’s sure it’s going to be _It’s not your fault._

“Let me finish, please,” he says. and Nagini nods. “I know you said it was not my fault, but I need to apologize. I killed you. I’m deeply sorry for it… had I known that there was someone under the snake, that it was _you,_ I wouldn’t have done it, no matter how many times Harry asked me to. Please believe me.”

 _Why am I crying?_ he thinks, nociting only in that moment that he feels tears on his cheeks. He goes to take them away with his hand, but as soon as his hand touches his face he sees Nagini’s hand taking his, and her looking at him with such a tender expression that for a moment his breath stops.

“I know,” she says softly, “that’s why I don’t blame you. You’re a good man, Neville.”

Neville feels like he’s back to yesterday, when he and Nagini had just started this conversation and were interrupted by Harry: the same sense of calm, of forgiveness, of acceptance he feels looking at her.

 _Like a moment of peace in the middle of the war,_ he thinks, and nodding he takes away his hand from his face and Nagini does the same.

***

They look at each other, a little smile on their face, before his self-consciousness goes to disturb his mind. _What can she think of you, running like that only to say sorry? She must find you ridiculous._ “Sorry for bargain here like that,” he says deprecabile.

“You were upset,” she answers, like that explains everything. “Is there something I can do for making you feel better?”

“Merlin, no, it’s fine,” he bubbles. “You already did too much, really - you don’t have to do anything else.”

“But I _want_ to, Neville,” she says eagerly. “You and Harry have been so kind, coming here every night to talk to me, I want to do something for you too.”

“It’s really nothing,” he answers dumbstruck. _Have our chat really meant so much to her?_

“It’s not, but let’s agree to disagree. Actually, I’ve had an idea.”

He sees Nagini moving towards the center of the bathroom, sit on the floor, and gesturing at him to go near her.

“Let’s sit here and chat a little,” she says to him. “Of something. Not about the war, or Voldemort: something simple.”

“I don’t want to impose….” he says, even if what she’s described sounds pretty much like heaven in Neville’s mind right now. _A moment of reprise, just what I had in mind coming here,_ he thinks.

“Nonsense. I like your company, and I think both of us need to loosen up a little. I was glad to help Harry, but… reviving some memories hadn’t been easy at all.”

Neville goes to sit beside her, and not for the first time since that story has been brought up he feels conflicted at Harry. _I’m glad that by tomorrow everything will be over._ “I’m sorry to hear that,” he says sincerely.”

“It’s in the past,” she answers dismissively. “Tom’s finally gone.”

“Tom… Riddle, right?”

“That was his birth name, yes,” she says. “Thought he was a genius, making an anagram of his name like he did. If only I had listen to Albus…”

 _What?_ Neville thinks, but before he can voice his question Nagini speaks again.

“I don’t want to talk about him,” she says resolutely. “We’ve just decided to loosen up, let’s do that. Tell you what: why don’t you tell me what’s the wizarding world like now? I was pretty segregate, I haven’t seen much in many years.”

Neville knows that Nagini, even if she probably also needs to clear her mind a little, is doing it most for his sake, and he feels so touched by her help that he doesn’t find in him to protest. Here, sitting beside her, he starts telling her everything he can think about.

***

They talk until sunrise.

Nagini feels guilty for that, not matter how many times Neville says that it’s fine, that he doesn’t mind going without sleep for a day. 

That talking with her was beautiful, he adds in his mind, because Nagini was so curious, so happy to rediscover everything from the world she had left. _I wasn’t free when I was alive neither,_ she had said at some point, _Hogwarts was the only place that made me free._

In between talking about the (for her) new world, it was sentence like that one, the little bits of information, that had helped Neville print a clearer picture of Nagini: an orphan with a blood curse, taken by the Circus Arcana when she was just a baby and escaping with a boy when she was almost twenty.

 _He wanted to find out who he was,_ she had said to him. _He’d been in the circus for a few months… he was brave enough to escape, and I followed him._

Neville had tried to ask more about this boy, who he could sense meant much to her, but Nagini had clearly close that conversation and start to refocus to the main topic. Neville had let it go, sensing it was pointless to insist, but that information has stayed with him.

In the end, it’s Nagini who opens it again, after having said goodbye to Neville. “About that boy...” she whispers, “you remind me so much of him.”

Neville stops, visibly surprised, and looks at her intently. Her eyes are full of love, and in that moment Neville realizes that he hadn’t completely understood before: that boy was Nagini’s lover. 

“Who was he?” he asks, unable to resist, and regrets it a moments later when Nagini closes her eyes and visibly shudders.

“I’m sorry,” he says eagerly, “forgive me, I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that… you care so much about him.”

“Cared,” she says. “He’s been dead for a long time.”

Neville doesn’t say anything, her grieve too much for him to try to speak at all. _Had this girl ever been happy?_ he thinks sadly, seeing her sit again on the marble floor.

“I’m sorry,” he says for what he feels he’s the umpteenth time tonight.

“You only asked a question,” she answers, “it’s normal. It’s just… it’s painful thinking about him. You really remind me of him. Same manners, same kindness, same bravery…”

He’s not sure of what Nagini says next, but he could swear he hears Nagini whisper something about _wrong choices_.

“He chose to go by Aurelius in the end,” she says to Neville, looking at him with tears on her face, and Neville has, for a moment, the absurd thought _How can a ghost cry?_ before her words sink in.

***

He goes to the Great Hall feeling a bit queasy, Nagini’s expression stuck in his mind.

He’s never known love. Fancies he’d had in the past (for Ginny, and before briefly for Hermione) are nothing comparable to the emotion that had crossen Nagini’s eyes when talking about that mysterious Aurelius. Apart from the shock of seeing a ghost cry (he tries to remember, but he’s pretty sure that in all his interaction with other ghost he’s never seen so much emotion in them, a so profound expression of _liveliness_ ,if you can use that word to describe a dead person) Neville had been stuck by how much he wanted to be the person to which someone feels that kind of love.

Because being loved with such intensity must be beautiful, even if all-consuming. He knows that in the wizarding world not everyone chooses to fall in love, and most are just happy to live a life without romantic love, but Neville’s sure that he will never feel happy like that. He wants to feel love, to have someone, maybe to start a family - he doesn’t know that yet, but it seems nice. 

He can almost picture it: someone to return home to, a house with photos of both of them and their family and friends, a quiet evening in front of the fireplace…

...and he realizes, startling, that he’s daydreaming, something that has never happened in the last year. 

He can’t believe it. He’s been so used to feel only pain and dullness as emotions that the idea of feeling something even a bit _good_ is enough to send him in shock mode. He’s always been a head-in-the-clouds kind of person, but he thought that something as silly as _daydreaming_ was more than he could never do after the war.

“Are you alright?” Ron asks him, when they’ve stopped eating and are going to the east part of the castle to help repair a few portraits who’ve been victim to cutting hexes before they could escape their frame - Headmistress McGonagall is with them, a few steps forward. 

“Yes,” he answers, realizing that he was still thinking about his shock. “Just… thinking, I guess.”

Ron nods, but Neville sees the conflict in his expression.

 _Time to put the daydreaming to a stop,_ Neville muses, before asking “How did it go with Harry?”

“Not well,” Ron grunts, “Harry’s been stubborn about Malfoy. I don’t know what’s going to happen today, but with the Saviour vouching for you? I can give a good guess.”

“For what’s worth, I’m sorry about it. Your family has had it with the Malfoys for a good reason.”

“Yeah, but it’s not just that,” Ron says, and for a moment Neville sees his indecision. “Can I trust you to keep what I’m telling you to yourself?”

“Of course you can, Ron.”

“Ok… but not now. Let’s talk when we’re alone,” he says, gesturing at McGonagall.

Neville nods, and together they continue towards their destination.


	10. Chapter 10

After being left alone, after McGonagall has thoroughly explained to them how to repair the portraits and had personally sees the both of them do the complicated mix of charm and transfiguration - that Neville, truth be told, thinks it should be done by a professional, but he’s pretty sure that one net yet wants to come to Hogwarts after what’s happened - Ron speaks again.

“About what we were saying before… it’s just that, y’know how Harry’s being avoiding us? Me and ‘Mione? I though, I don’t know, that we’d done something bad, even if we hadn’t the faintest idea of what. But you see how he didn’t go all up in arms with Malfoy? Decided to give him a second chance and everything? It’s because Harry’s heart is too big for his own good. So I guess that, for not forgiving us, we must have done a _very bad_ thing…”

Neville can see how Ron’s crumbling after this weight. He doesn’t know what to say to him, has no answers for Harry’s behaviour, and feels his heart aches for all of them.

“I don’t think that’s the case, Ron,” Neville answers gently. “I remember you all three coming from Hogsmeade that night. You were joined at the hip. And then, during the battle… Harry died. Maybe he’s just not coping well with it.”

“But why he wouldn’t say anything to us? We would help him. We’ve been all suffering, me with…” he says, and for a moment Neville sees him almost choked up, “... _that._ We could help each other cope. Why’s he leaving us? I mean, if it was just me I would know, with going away and everything, but Hermione hasn’t -”

“Ron,” Neville stops him gently, seeing that his friends is blatering and becoming more nervous by the second. “Calm down. I’m sure that neither you or Hermione have done nothing wrong. And I’m also sure that Harry is going to speak to you both again.” _I’m glad to speak to you again,_ he’d said to Hermione yesterday afternoon, and Neville’s sure that Harry is not one to go back to his words.

“Ok, thanks Neville,” Ron answers, his face a complex range of emotion that Neville is not sure he’s able to identify. “Blimey, what a mess.”

Neville looks around him, on the ruins of Hogwarts; he thinks of Nagini’s situation, how he didn’t even think he could find himself stuck in understanding the life of Voldemort’s snake; he can’t help but agree. “What a mess indeed.”

***

_“I’ve met one of the new students today.”_

_Nagini looks around, searching for Albus’ voice, and finds him on the door of her classroom, when she’s preparing her plan lessons for the new year. She’s been teaching for eleven years, but still sometimes feels like she’s an imposter, stealing a job from a more competent teacher, so she does what she can to prepare herself._

_“Yes?” she asks, because that’s nothing unusual: Albus is the teacher usually delegated to bring muggleborn wizards and witches their letters, since he’s Deputy Headmaster. She doesn’t get why Albus is acting so strange, so nervously._

_“He… he speaks Parseltongue.”_

**_That_ ** _takes Nagini’s attention completely. Parselmouth is a rare gift among wizards, and rarely explained by blood curse such as the one she has. “Is he a maledictus?”_

_“No, I don’t think so,” Albus replies, coming towards her desk. “He’s an orphan. Mrs Cole, the matron of the orphanage where he lives, told me that they suspect that his mother worked in a circus.”_

_Nagini’s entire body petrifies, like Albus had stuck an hex on her. That’s why Albus is acting like that. He thinks… “Albus…” she says, “it’s not what you think. I don’t… I don’t have a son.”_

_“He has your colors,” he says. “Of hair and eyes. He’s a parseltongue, something so rare that the only English family known to possess the gift was Slytherin’s. There were just too much clues not to ask. I thought that you and Aurelius…”_

_And_ **_that’s_ ** _the real reason now, isn’t it? The idea of having found another member of his family, of being so close to a lost family member who’s family relation is still wrapped in mystery…_ ** _Poor Albus_** _, she thinks._ **_Always craving family._**

_“No, we didn’t,” Nagini answers gently. “I wouldn’t have left my son, Albus. Especially one with him. Do you really think I could do that?”_

_“No, you’re right,” he answers apologetically. “I’ve let my mind go too far. If I had thought about it more thoroughly…”_

_“No harm done, don’t worry.”_

_“Still, there’s something else about that boy that I should warn you about.” Albus’ expression becomes hard, like he’s fighting a war within himself. “I was a bit harsh with the boy today. I'm not proud of it. But there’s something wrong with him, Naga. Mrs Cole told me that he did something to two other orphans who made them mute permanently. And the boy himself is cold, unemotional, takes pride in his cruelty -”_

_“He’s just a child!” Nagini shouts, silencing Albus and leaving him visibly confused. “What the hell, Albus? Where does this come from?” She can’t believe it. “You’re speaking about a_ **_child_ ** _, Albus! A probably traumatized one, if what you’re saying is true. Merlin, it seems like you’re talking about -”_

_She stops herself, realization dawning on her. “You see Gellert in him,” she says, “that’s why.”_

_Albus’ silence speaks for him, confirming her suspicious._

_***_

_“Darkness is not something that happens every time someone’s being abused, Al,” she says forcibly. “You’ve_ **_seen_ ** _yourself that it isn’t true. A boy won’t become the next Dark Lord because he’s abused.”_

 **_If that was true, I wouldn’t be here,_ ** _she wants to add, but even if they’re friends there are things that Nagini still doesn’t want to talk about. Aurelius had been the only exception, but even that, Aurelius had been her only exception in many things._

_The love she still feels for him sometimes takes her by surprise, by how much it’s still strong after all those years._

_“Perhaps not, but in that boy he could,” he replies, making Nagini return to the conversation at hand. “And it’s not only about Gellert… Naga, trust me, my instincts have rarely failed me. The only time they did, I lost a sister.”_

_A heavy silence descends between them, and Nagini can almost see the cloak of darkness putting itself on Albus’ bend shoulders. Ariana Dumbledore is a difficult subject on the best of times, and more than once, in those eleven years, she has trained herself to avoid anything that could be related to her when speaking with Albus’ brother, Aberforth._

_And since the man she loves is lost to the one responsible for her death - something of which she’s not sure, since neither Aberforth nor Albus ever speak about her death, but she can take a guess - that hadn’t been easy at all._

_“I will keep an eye on him,” she says conciliatory. “But don’t expect me to treat the boy like he’s Gellert dark side incarnated, just because he’s done something bad. He’s probably being bullied, Al. The only wizard child, living with tak-penyihir*. It mustn't have been easy for him.”_

_Albus nods, before handing her a paper - which she knows is the list of books and tools for first years. “Could you accompany him to take his things? I’ve already taken some money from the school found. I’m afraid I’ve left a bad impression on the boy, and I don’t think speaking with him right now would change that.”_

_Nagini nods, accepting the responsibility. She knows that’s usually Albus’ job, but she can see this as an attempt to not antagonize the boy more than he’d already done. Beside, she needs to go buy a few things anyway. “When and where will I pick him up?”_

_“I’ll give you the details tonight,” Albus answers, “but it should be in a few days.” With that he nods, going towards the door._

_“Albus!” she says before he can go away, the thought that had just occurred to her. “You haven’t told me the boy’s name.”_

_“You’re right, how curious of me,” he says. “I’ve carried an entire conversation without even mentioning his name. It’s Tom Riddle.”_

_***_

“Who are you?”

Nagini’s mind, who had been occupied remembering that particular memory, focuses on this new voice. It belongs to a girl, one with pale blond hair - which are sticking in all different directions - and clear blue eyes, who’s looking at her from the entrance of the bathroom with a curious expression.

Nagini has not spoken with anyone, apart from Harry and Neville, and hadn’t really meant for someone else to discover her existence - if it can be described such. She doesn’t know what to do, now that she’s faced with another human being, momentarily paralyzed by this unexpected interaction.

She tries to remember how it was being a human, a professor, but those memories are long buried in her mind, slowly resurfacing after decades of void - a snake’s mind is not able to _remember,_ guided only by instincts: a smell that for a human would be considered _famililar_ becomes good, a new one something to be wary about, and the one of a enemy a bad one. 

(The first memories her now human mind had remembered where the one with Voldemort, when she’d been her favorite pet, and thinking about them would make her feel physically sick, if her ghost form could feel such sensations).

“Who are you talking to, Luna?” a new voice says, coming behind the girl, and Nagini sees another girl, long ginger hair and a face full of freckles, a wand on her hand and what seems to be lime stuck on her hair and clothes.

“A new ghost,” she says, still looking at her wit that curious expression. “I think she must me mute, though.”

The new girl enters in the bathroom, putting herself near the blond girl - _Luna,_ her mind supplies. She’s looking between her and Luna strangely, like she doesn’t know exactly what to do.

“A new ghost?” she asks to Nagini. “Where did you come from?” 

Nagini’s even more petrified, suddenly being spoken by two strangers, so she does the only thing she can think about: she runs.

She goes towards a toilet, as she’s seen sometimes Myrtle do, and travels the water pipes until she’s sure she’s far away from the bathroom. Then she braves on going on the outside, hoping she hadn’t arrived in a floor with many people, or that at least she won’t be noticed much.

But when she sees grass, and then the bright clear sky on the horizon, she understands that she’s gone where she didn’t think she could: she’s on the Hogwarts ground.

_Outside._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * i'm not indonesian, i've just translated the words "no-magic". It's probably the wrong combination, but since we don't have a in-canon indonesian words for muggle, I improvised


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rounded up the plot, and put a roughly estimated total of chapters :)

Ron and Neville work until sunset, and unfortunately not all portraits are done yet. Repairing the damage caused to them while maintaining the spells that were there before is not an easy job, and the risk to change the personality of its inhabitants is high.

They decide to call it a day anyway, because they’re both tired and hungry. On their way to the Great Hall, they comment about the reparations that have already been done to the school - there’s still a long way to go, but the improvements are going steady - and continue to do so even with Luna, Ginny and Hermione, who were already there.

“News of Harry?” Hermione asks Neville, and her face falls when Neville sadly shakes his head. 

“Why? What’s going on with Harry?” Ginny asks, and Neville realizes that both her and Luna don’t know anything about the Malfoy trial.

Hermione casts a muffliato silently, and after that she explains to the girls everything - something that Neville is not really on board with, but he figures that Ginny and Luna are also his friends, so they can know what’s going on.

“I can’t believe the nerve of that woman, defending the Malfoys!” Ginny mutters angry, and all of them agree with her sentiment.

Except Luna. “I think he made a good decision,” she says calmly. 

“Luna, you can’t be serious,” Ginny scolds her. “The Malfoys are the worst! Don’t you remember the diary? And this year, your -”

She doesn’t complete her statement, but everyone understands anyway what was she referring to. Luna’s kidnapping is still a sore subject, and judging by Ginny’s expression, she’s aware that she put her foot in her mouth.

“Draco was nice,” Luna answers. “He came to chat with me when he was at home. He was afraid all the time. One time he was crying, and I tried to comfort him.”

“You… comforted him…” Neville says, because he can’t believe what Luna’s saying. 

“Yes. It was difficult, with the bars between us, but -”

Ginny’s laugh stops Luna’s sentence, and everyone looks at her. She’s laughing a laugh that Neville thinks is pretty hysterical, like the situation couldn’t be more absurdly funny than it is. Which Neville agrees wholeheartly.

“Luna, I love you,” Ginny says hugging the other girl, a hug so strong that Luna’s skin reddens when Ginny is gripping her with her fingers, and Luna puts her head on Ginny’s shoulder like she’s more than happy to stay there indefinitely.

A small part of him wonders why that hug doesn’t make him feel like he’s intriguing, like Harry and Hermione’s hug had. Maybe it’s because he’s seen Ginny and Luna being affectionate with each other, or maybe it’s because they’re not on the outs with each other.

Or maybe, Neville muses when Ginny takes him by the shirt and forces him to hug the both of them, it’s because he’s part of that group, in a way he will never be with Harry, Ron and Hermione.

***

After dinner, having said goodbye to Ron and Hermione, after making promises that they will update the others about news of Harry if they have any, Neville intends to go to Myrtle's’ bathroom to talk with Nagini. Not as much as yesterday - he feels tired, so much that he doesn’t think he can stay up another night - but just a bit, because talking to her is good and makes him feel better.

But before he can diverge from the path that’ll take them to the Ravenclaw common room, Ginny talks to him. “Did you know that there was a new ghost at Hogwarts?”

Neville’s alarmed by the second, because of course he knew, but Ginny wasn0t supposed to. “Really? Who?” he asks with fake nonchalance, dreading the answer.

“An asian girl,” Ginny answers. “Didn’t talk, so I don’t know who she is. Luna and I found her today in Myrtle's bathroom. Run away as soon as she saw us.”

 _Run away?_ Neville thinks worried. _I have to find her._ “How strange,” he says calmly, but on the inside he’s becoming more and more anxious.

He already guessed that Nagini didn’t want to meet new people yet, but he hadn’t considered the possibility that someone could find her anyway. Myrtle’s bathroom isn’t popular by any means, but Luna’s good friends with Myrtle, so it was only a matter of time before she and Ginny met her.

 _What an idiot I’ve been,_ he despairs, trying not to jump to conclusion so soon: maybe Nagini had only disappear into the Chamber, and return to the bathroom after making certain that the two girls were far away from there. He can’t know yet: he has to go and see.

“Yes, indeed,” Ginny comments, interrupting his thoughts. “Well, you’ll see her eventually. Maybe she’ll talk to you.”

 _You have no idea,_ Neville thinks, his anxiety giving place to a small part of him that’s happy that, until now, Nagini’s only open up to him.

Luna’s a few feet in front of them, and she’s the one who knocks on the bronze eagle in order to hear the riddle. 

“ _What can fill a room but takes up no space?_ ” The eagle asks, and Neville, not for the first time, thinks that the Ravenclaw tower has a really strange way to protect itself, but that it works better than the password system Gryffindor has - it can't be confessed with torturing someone.

“It’s the light,” Luna answers, and the eagle nods before opening the door to the common room.

“See you tomorrow,” she and Ginny say as a goodbye, and Neville nods before, after the door is closed, running to Myrtle’s bathroom, hoping against hope that Nagini is still here.

But as he feared, after searching the entire bathroom, Nagini’s nowhere to be seen.

***

_The pain is excruciating. She’s bleeding, and her open skin brush against the hard ground of the forest making her even more bruised than she already is._

_What happened? She tries to remember, but nothing comes up. She must have fought with another predator, something she’s running from, but she doesn’t know if it’s following her or not. The only thing she knows is that she’s bleeding too much, and she needs to find a place to hide and recover, because if that predator - or another one - finds her, she won’t have any chance to win._

_She would prefer a cavern, maybe one undeground, b_ _ut after a while slither becomes too much painful for her, and she finds shelter on a cavity in an oak tree. She doesn’t know how much she stays there, only occasionally hunting for a squirrel in order to not die of hunger, but she sees many times the sun come up and go down. Around her the forest is alive, creature sometimes coming too close to her hiding place, but neither centaurs or wolfs or acromantulas disturb her, so she safely goes to hibernation most of the time._

_But one day, everything changes. One day a male human is venturing in the forest, and there’s something about him that feels familiar to her, like a comforting smell. Her instincts tell her that he’s not a stranger, and so she dares venture out of her hole, trying to get a better look at him._

_He’s a tall man, with dark hair and white skin. Someone still in his prime, even if not a youngster. He seems… angry, somehow, even if she doesn’t know why._

_“Dumbledore is a fool! If I can’t have job, no one will!” he’s saying, and even if the word_ **_Dumbledore_ ** _makes her pause, it’s not that that makes her speak up to him. It’s because that man speaks her language, something that has never happened before._

_“Who are you?” she asks, and he sees the man freeze, and slowly turning around to look at her, a shocked expression of his face._

_“What did you say?”_

_“I asked who are you,” she says. “You smell familiar.”_

_That man kneels before her, looking at her more closely. His face is frozen, like he’s seeing something that shouldn’t be possible._

_She doesn’t know what anything of it means._

_“Na… Nagini?” he asks. “But that’s impossible! You were -”_

_He stops abruptly, his face contorting in something more than the anger from before: it’s pure hatred. She becomes instantly afraid of him._

_“Of course he told me you were dead!” he roars, his magic going wild in all directions. “The only person I’ve ever cared about! What other way to destroy me? He’ll pay for it! I will destroy everything that he loves!”_

_He must realize that he’s scaring her too much, because as soon as he looks at her his face softens. “Don’t be afraid,” he says, “I would never hurt you. I care about you. Do you remember… anything?”_

***

_“I’m not afraid,” she lies, because she doesn’t want to give him the impression that she’s an easy prey if he decides to hurt her. “And no. But what you called me…”_

_“Nagini,” he supplies, smiling. His magic, at long least, flies out, making her feel a little more safe._

_“That’s my name,” she says, having only realized it after having probably forgotten it._ **_Why did I forget my own name? Who gave it to me?_ **

_“Yes it is,” the man says. “I recognized your voice. We… we were close, once. You took care of me.”_

_Nagini - for that’s her name, she’s sure of it, so better get used to it - tries to remember if the man is telling the truth, but nothing comes up. But why shouldn’t he? His smell is familiar, and he doesn’t want to attack her. There would be no reason for him to lie to her, wouldn't it? And besides, that **you took care of me** seems almost like something a pup would say to his parent._

_“You don’t remember?” he asks._

_“No,” she decides to tell the truth. “But I trust you.”_

_The man makes a strange face then - he seems almost to the point of crying. “You always did,” he answers. “You were the only one who really understood me. I’m so glad you’re alive.”_

_He tends his had towards her, palm up, and Nagini sniffs a bit before putting her head on his palm. With the other hand, he gently caresses the back of her head, making small sounds that please her._

_“You live here?” he asks, pointing at her hiding place, and she nods. “Do you have any pup?” he asks then, and she denies it, finding the idea of birthing cub strangely disturbing, almost like she’s not equipped to have any eggs._

_“Would you like to come with me than?”_

_Her head goes away from his hand - but not before he tries to grip her, she notices - alarmed. Going away from her place? But what if the predator comes back? What if she’s in danger again?_

_“I won’t hurt you,” he repeats to placate her. “No one will. I’ll protect you. You’ll be fine, trust me. We’ll be together again.”_

_He says that_ **_again_ ** _with a note of pain, like he still cannot believe that he can have her company. It’s that, more than anything else, that makes her accept his offer. Because the man speaks live having her would be like a dream, and no one had ever shown Nagini so much care._

 _“What’s your name?” she asks after some time, after the man has brought her in his house and arranged a space for her to live in, because she still doesn’t know what to call him._ **_I didn’t even ask his name before accepting,_ ** _she thinks with a note of alarm in her mind._

_The man pauses. He looks at her, like he’s deciding something. “Voldemort,” he says in the end._


	12. Chapter 12

Nagini is not here, and Neville is worried sick. _Where could she be?_ he wonders. _Maybe in the Chamber? But I can’t go there without Harry… but someone else can._

“Myrtle?” Neville calls the ghost, because she was the one to first bring them in the Chamber, the first time they talked with Nagini. “Where are you?”

“I know what you want,” Myrtle says without preamble, coming into view in front of him, and making him jump in surprise. “I don’t know where Nagini is.”

“She’s not in the Chamber, then?”

“No,” she confirms. “I don’t know where she went. Maybe she wanted to see the rest of the school. She used to teach here, you know.”

“Yes I do,” he answers absentmindedly, before realizing something that he should have been obvious since the beginning.

Myrtle knows Nagini. More than that: Nagini _trusts_ her. She was the one to conduct them to her in the Chamber, and it’s pretty sure that Myrtle had called her “Naga” the first time they met her.

_Myrtle was killed by Voldemort when he was a school,_ Neville remembers by Harry’s stories. _So she either knew Nagini outside of school, or she was his teacher. And, consequently, Voldemort’s._

Neville had already thought about that possibility some time ago, but with the information he had at that time, he could not reach any conclusion. But now he can. He can ask Myrtle some questions, nothing too invasive, and paint a clearer picture of Nagini’s life.

But Nagini is missing, and Neville is worried. He knows her enough to understand that a sudden interest of someone else in her would have made her fly from here, but he doesn’t know if that scared her enough to not return here at all, or maybe after quite some time. He doesn’t want to spend the rest of the summer without knowing how’s she, without talking to her, without making sure she’s as good as she can be.

“I have to find her,” he says out loud to no one in particular, deciding that her safety is more important than his curiosity. 

But before he can go away, Myrtle stops her.

“Don’t,” she says, and Neville looks at her surprised. 

“Why not?”

“It’s important for a ghost to familiarize with the castle,” Myrtle answers. “I didn’t for a long time. Let her return on her own. Trust me, she will.”

“But she run away! Luna and Ginny came here and scared her this afternoon!”

“She will return, Neville,” Myrtle says again. “Besides, she used to do that even when she was alive. Sometimes she went away from some time and no one knew where she was.”

“But I…”

“Trust me.”

***

Neville feels helpless, not knowing what to do. What Myrtle is saying sounds reasonable, and maybe Nagini really needs to explore more the castle. But Neville had thought - or better, had hoped - to be the one to show her the castle, maybe one day when she didn’t feel so afraid, so alone, with her death still so new…

_What a fool I am,_ Neville thinks, _to think Nagini needs me at all._ “Alright,” he says, feeling defeated.

“I’m sorry,” Myrtle says apologetically, but she doesn’t need to feel sorry at all as far as Neville is concerned.

“Will you tell me more about her, then?” he asks. “Since she was… your teacher?”

“Yes,” she answers, and there’s a smile on her face. “But only for my first year. She helped me a lot. I was so alone, a muggleborn in a whole new world… She told he she knew what that felt like. When I first started my second year, I was devastated that she wasn’t there.”

“Do you know what happened?”

“No,” she answers. “I’ve asked her but she hadn’t said anything.”

_It must have been the famous battle when she supposedly died,_ Neville thinks. _Battle_ _of which we still know nothing about._

“Many thought she had died that summer,” Myrtle continues. “and the professors didn’t say anything about that. But I refused to believe it. She was my role model. So smart, so caring. She was quite popular among us students. Especially for Tom.”

“Voldemort?” Neville asks, surprised. “He cared about her?”

“I don’t think he could ever really care about anyone, even at that age,” Myrtle says, confirming something Neville already thought. “He’s always been a psychopath. But he was obsessed by her. I remember when I went to her study when someone was bullying me, I always used to find him already there. He was choosing selective for the next year, or that’s what he said.”

_They were close,_ Neville thinks, feeling a sour sensation in his mouth at the idea. _I wonder what Nagini thought of him at that time._

“You called her Naga,” Neville says, because he doesn’t want to think or hear about Voldemort. His presence had been the suffocating shadow of all his last year. 

“She told me to call her that the first time I went to her because of Olive’s bullying,” Myrtle says with a smile. “I will never forget it. She made my first year at Hogwarts more bearable.”

Neville thinks about how Myrtle is talking about her, the words she’s using to describe Nagini. _She cares about her. If she thinks Nagini’s fine, then I should listen. to her._

Almost as she’s reading his mind, she concludes “you’re not the only one who cares about her, Neville.”

***

_She notices it the first time she goes in the girl’s bathroom on the second floor. That bathroom has sink taps that look like snakes and, most of all, that can talk._

_Even if they don’t._

_Nagini doesn’t really know why’s that. She tried to ask them who created them, and why, but they refused to answer any question she had. She’s used by now by Hogwarts’ eccentricities, but it’s the first time that she sees snakes outside of Slytherin’s house, and was curious about understanding if that bathroom was made by Salazar._

_She can’t go to Slytherin quarters, not being a Slytherin herself. Slughorn is friendly enough towards her, but even he won’t grant her access to the innumerable snakes decoration of his house’s wall rooms, so she’s stuck feeling curious about the history of the first man in Britain who could ever talk to snake, a very rare gift here, when in her home is something every magical people can do, even not maledictus._

_When Tom Riddle starts Hogwarts, some of it changes. He, being a Slytherin and a Parselmouth, can talk to those snakes, and between his information and her studies they try to make a clearer picture of the mysterious Founder, whose life to this day is still a clue._

_But the snakes on the girl’s bathroom still don’t talk at all. Both her and Tom try (something she’s not proud of, bring a twelve years old boy in a girl’s bathroom, but she makes sure to bring Tom only when she knows no one’s around) but, while they’re pretty sure the snakes understand them, they don’t answer._

_“Maybe they were sworn to secret,” Tom suggests when they’re drinking tea in her room, almost at curfew hour. “And we need a password to let them speak.”_

_“Maybe,” she concedes, “but I have no idea where to even search to find something like this. And it’s not like we really need them. We’ve talked with plenty of snakes.”_

_“But it still doesn’t make sense,” Tom says, and his gaze is assorted, trying to decipher the strange snake sink’s silence._

_If she’s being completely honest, she’s glad she had found this little project for Tom and herself. For her it’s just a curiosity, but Tom seems very interested in the Founder of his house origins, and she wants for him to have a deep relationship with an adult he can trust. Tom is a strange boy, intelligent and calm on the surface, but sometimes she senses that something’s wrong with him. She can’t help but remember Albus’ first description of the boy in those times, how he still sees Tom as the next Dark Lord, and Nagini, being the closest teacher to the boy, has a duty to stop it. She can see the potential good in him, and how cruelly has the boy been treated by anyone in his life._

**_No different from Aurelius,_ ** _she thinks, and she feels the same stab at the heart anytime she thinks about him, lost to Grindelwald’s grip, far from here._

_***_

_“It’s late now,” she says after a while, casting a tempus. “Go to your dormitory.”_

_“Why are you spending time with me?”_

_The question comes suddenly, and she looks at Tom surprised. He’s looking at her completely devoid of emotions, like he couldn’t care less about her answer._

**_How can a twelve years old do that?_ ** _she wonders, remembering the first time she went to meet him and take him to Diagon Alley, how he had almost show no expression on seeing the wonderful street for the first time. She’s been abused too, but her childhood with her parents had been happy, and that maybe makes all the difference._

**_Aurelius was like that,_ ** _she thinks sadly._ **_I hope he has found a way to smile._ **

_“Because I like you,” she says truthfully. “You’re a good boy, Tom.”_

_“I don’t believe you,” Tom says. “You pity me, that’s why.”_

_“It’s not true!”_

_“It is. I suppose I should be grateful anyway. Better you than Dumbledore.”_

_“Professor Dumbledore, Tom. He’s your teacher, he deserves respect.”_

_“No he doesn’t!” Tom replies with vehemence, surprising her. “He looks at me like I’m rotten, like I don’t deserve to be in this school!_ **_I deserve it!_ ** _I’m more powerful than any of the other students here! I didn’t deserve to be stuck up with those filthy Muggles -”_

_“Tom, calm down!”_

_Tom snaps his mouth shut, eyes open in a clear expression of shock. To Nagini it looks like he didn’t intend to say those words out loud._

_It’s completely out of character for Tom to be like that. He’s always so calm, so placid, almost like Albus’ rejection doesn’t hurt him at all._

_B_ _ut of course it does._ **_Batara Sambu, what should I do?_**

_“Forgive me, miss Nagini,” he says. “It wasn’t my intention to be so aggressive. I apologize.”_

_“Tom…” she says, and for a moment she doesn’t know how to continue. How can she fault him to be angry with an injustice? How can she teach him obedience to cruel adults and children, like the ones he has in the Wool's orphanage? That’s what had brought her in Skender’s clutch._

_What the boy needs is an adult he can trust completely, one with he can be himself. One who won’t judge him when he shows to be upset with how another adult is mistreating him._

**_Forgive me, Albus, but you’re wrong,_ ** _she thinks._ **_You can’t understand what it’s like to be abused._ **

_“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” she says in the end. “Because you’re right.”_

_Tom looks at her with a little smile on his face, and that's how she knows she's making the right choice._


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to anyone who commented or left a kudos! I'm trying to proofreadind the story a bit in between writing new chapters, so updating will be slower

Neville returns to his dormitory somehow resigned.

Myrtle had said to him not to worry about Nagini’s absence, that she will return, that she did that even when she was alive, and ran away from time to time.

Neville thinks that it’s because she needed to transform. The hunch he’d had reading the book the Room had given him, that her being a maledictus was not something that many people knew, seems even more likely now, given the fact that despite being close, Myrtle had not told him anything about it.

Moreover, someone would have recognized her as Voldemort’s pet. McGonagall, to name just one person, but he’s sure there are other people as well. But McGonagall didn’t, did she? If her or someone else knew, surely they would have tried to take her away from Voldemort. But again, Dumbledore knew and he didn’t do anything, apart from telling Harry about her.

All of that is making Neville uneasy, in addition to confused. It’s been almost three weeks since the war, after meeting Nagini, but still that woman is wrapped in mystery for him. Neville wants to understand, to figure out her life, to help her.

Because he feels guilty for killing her, yes, that’s a part, but also because he’s starting to care.

He realizes it when he’s putting himself to sleep, in his dormitory. He’s a caring person by nature, and would of course feel bad for every missing person here, but his level of anxiety for her disappearance is not dissimilar to what he felt for Harry, Ron and Hermione all the previous year.

Is he already so close to her? He’s not the type to make friends easily, even if all the last year the closeness he’s felt with his pears has for sure changed him in that regard. But still, he barely knows her, they’ve talked just a few times…

And yet it’s enough. Not like his friendship with Ginny, that grew with time and him letting go of his crush for her, and not like with Luna, who he used to find at the beginning to bizarre to really consider her his friend.

With Nagini it’s been like falling hard into caring, without him even noticing it. So much that he’s still worried about her, even if rationally he knows he shouldn’t, that Nagini can’t be hurt more than she’d already been hurt, because she’s a ghost and it’s not alive anymore…

Rest, when it finds him, comes after a long time.

***

Harry comes back to Hogwarts when it’s already sunrise, waking him after just a few hours of sleep.

Neville looks at him and sees how bad he looks. He’s visibly tired, sad, and wears dirty clothes - Merlin alone knows how he managed to make his clothes like that, since he was supposed to be on a trial, not in a fight. But it’s Harry, so of course the unexpected always happens to him.

“Are you alright?” Neville asks, and Harry just shrugs and goes face-fish into his bed, with all his clothes on. He murmurs something and his shoes and jacket levivate from him, and then he just closes his eyes.

Neville thinks it’s the end of it, that he will talk with him in a few hours, but before he can return to sleep Harry opens his eyes, casts a Muffliato all around them and starts to speak.

“It was horrible.”

It’s just a simple sentence, and yet Neville feels in those words all that Harry must have endured. He looks at him for letting him know that he’s listening, and Harry talks again.

“It seemed like it would never end. I don’t know how people can still go on like this, after the war… so ready to fight. I’m just tired. Who wants to be like this after… after everything?”

Neville sees Harry’s point of view and quietly nods, because he feels tired himself. Even if he feels that there's a need to bring justice to whoever deserves it, he doesn’t think he would be able to fight in a court for it. _Let the adults do something for once,_ he thinks.

“What happened?” he asks, implying the question _What was the verdict for the Malfoys?_

“Lucius is in Azkaban for life,” Harry says. “That was easy. There was nothing I could do and, frankly, good riddance. Narcissa… Narcissa will serve a period of social working for families of muggleborn who have had a loss in the war, or something like that. And Draco… Draco has been sentenced for three years in Azkaban.”

Even if Neville had felt that letting Draco go without repercussion would have been completely unfair for what he’d done all his seven years at Hogwarts, he still feels bad for him. Three years in Azkaban… he’s not something Neville would wish to someone his age. To people like Bellatrix, or Voldemort, or Greyback, or Barty Crouch Jr… to other Death Eaters, it would be too little. Not even a life sentence in Azkaban would be enough for them. But Draco… 

Maybe Neville is starting to see what Harry’s been trying to tell them. Draco is a Death Eater, but it’s still young, as all of them are. Maybe it’s really too much for him.

***

“I tried to rebound the sentence, but there was nothing I could do,” Harry continues. “Narcissa… she was desperate. She cried. It wasn’t pretty. Andromeda took her away into her home after that. I’ve been with Teddy until now, because Andromeda was helping her.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Neville says, and it’s one hundred percent honest. “It mustn't be easy for her.”

“A mother’s love,” Harry says, pained but somehow amused. “I would know. It’s so strong. I hope her long lost sister can help her in those three years. Merlin knows I’ve tried.”

“I’m sure you did the best you could, Harry,” Neville says. “You have nothing to reprimand yourself.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he answers, and Neville knows that he doesn’t believe it. Typical of Harry, really: always underestimating himself and what he does.

There’s a silence after that, and Neville thinks it’s the end of the discussion, but Harry speaks again.

“Listen… all of that got me thinking. We have to help Nagini. And as much as I couldn’t save Draco completely, I’m not sure we two alone can help her. I know you want to maintain her existence secrecy, but -”

“There’s no need anymore,” Neville answers. “Ginny and Luna saw her.”

“Really?” Harry asks, surprised. “Did you let them meet her?”

“No, they found her by accident,” Neville answers. “She… she didn’t take it well. She left.”

“What? Left? Where is she now?”

“I have no idea. I’ve spoken to Myrtle, and she has told me to not worry about it. That she needs to explore and be on her own.”

From the look on Harry’s face, he doesn’t seem at all convinced. “Is it a ghost thing?”

“I think so. But you’re right, anyway. I think it’s time to speak to someone else about her. We can’t be enough.”

Harry nods, and Neville sees he’s preoccupied for her. “Has something else happened?”

“No, but Myrtle… she told me some things about Nagini. She was her teacher.”

“Her teacher?” Harry asks. “Here?”

“Yes, her first year.”

“But that means that Nagini knew Tom as well as a student. It doesn’t make any sense. Dumbledore told me that she was almost completely turned by the time the two met.”

“Myrtle told me that she and Voldemort were close,” Neville adds. “She was his favorite teacher or something like that.”

“It’s… It’s so confusing,” Harry says, defeated. “She was Tom’s teacher, then she supposedly died in an unknown battle, then she became Voldemort’s hor- pet,” he shutters, and Neville feels confused for a few moments, “and _then_ she’s a ghost.”

“I think we should talk with Dumbledore’s portrait,” Neville says. “Like we’d agreed a week ago. He has to know everything, so her story will finally make sense to us. And maybe he can help us understand her better.”

“You’re right, we will tomorrow,” Harry says, and this time it’s truly the end of the conversation.

***

Neville oversleeps, so much that he completely misses breakfast. It’s only because Harry is waking him up that he doesn’t sleep into lunch as well.

 _Merlin, I feel so tired,_ he thinks. _I feel like I could sleep for a month._

“I’ve brought you something,” Harry says, depositing a couple of plates and a cup of coffee on his bed. “And spoken with McGonagall as well.”

“Thank you,” Neville answers, going straight for the coffee. “About what?”

“About talking with Dumbledore. I figured we would do that alone. If you’re still on the idea?”

“Yes, of course,” he says. “Alright. When?”

“This evening, before dinner. The Headmistress is seeing the damage that has been done in the east wing, and she told me that she’s called an expert in extension charm.”

“It’s the Hufflepuff common room that needs it, right?”

“Yeah. I’ve seen the damage. It’s… not pretty. I’m not even sure they will save Helga Hufflepuff’s portrait.”

“Oh Merlin,” Neville says. “That’s too bad. I wonder how the others are taking the news.”

Now that he thinks about it, he realizes that he hasn’t spent time with the other members of the DA after the war, apart from Ginny and Luna. He knows that some of it come from Nagini, but he’s also too tired all the time to try to speak to anyone. And a little part of him wants to live the past behind, and with it all the close connections he’s formed during this difficult year.

But he doesn’t want to lose his new friends, even if their friendship comes from war. He resolves that he will speak with the ‘Puffs and then try to find the others. 

“No idea,” Harry says. “They’re still sleeping in the kitchen as far as I know.”

Neville nods, thinking that the sleeping arrangement, between some destroyed areas and people who want to stay with their friends or family (as Luna and Ginny) have been left to a personal choice. 

Of course, no one has chosen the Slytherin dormitory. And he doesn’t know if someone has opened Snape’s quarters yet.

“So, what do I need to do today?” he asks. “You know my chores?”

“You have none,” Harry says, and continues before Neville can protest. “Neville, you’re exhausted. You’re barely sleeping. Don’t worry about it. Talk with someone, relax, work with Sprout on the greenhouses, I don’t know.”

“But there’s still so much to do,” he says. “I have to help.”

“You won’t help anybody if you fall asleep,” Harry answers. “Trust me, I know. Besides, I have the feeling that tonight’s conversation won’t be easy.”

Neville looks at Harry, at how wary he looks, and still he worries about anyone else but him. “Alright,” he concedes. “And thank you. And you’re right,” he adds, “I have the same feeling.”


	14. Chapter 14

Portraits, Neville muses while eating, after Harry has gone away from the dormitory, are disturbing as a concept.

The magic that is used to make them is one of the most complex Neville has ever seen or done - yesterday, working on some of them with Ron, and Merlin, it was really only yesterday? That he had felt so good he’d started _daydreaming?_ It feels so much more time - and in Neville’s opinion, it’s also completely useless.

Having grown up in the wizarding world, he’s used to them. Gran has several portraits of their ancestors and they talk with him and Gran all the time, but to Neville it has always felt unnatural. Spending hours under the _dementiri personalitas*_ spell while the Artigician** manoeuvres the paint brush in order to capture your image, he can’t figure out for the life of him why anyone would subject themselves to this.

What’s the point of having a simulacra of yourself that goes on, after you’re gone? To let future generations know who you were? To let your family feel like you’re still with them even if you’re not? It has no point: what’s dead should stay dead.

He knows perfectly well that he’s a hypocrite, that he doesn’t feel that way about ghosts, even if it’s the same train of thought. Ghosts are, after all, as dead as the portraits are. But ghosts have always felt more real than portraits, because at least the person did choose to not go to the other side. It feels more… coherent, somehow. More preferable.

A young Neville, once, thought that he would have preferred his parents to be ghosts, instead of what they are now. It’s a horrible thought, something that he distanced himself from as soon as he first thought it, but he thinks about it now, how he would have hated to know his parents as portraits - never really _knowing them,_ because portraits don’t feel, don’t change, don’t grow _-_ but he would have loved to see his parents as ghosts, because they would have made the choice to not go after and stay with him. Stay _for_ him.

Instead, what he has is parents who don’t really understand much, that are… incapable of being with him the way he wants them to be. He shouldn’t feel resentful because he at least has met them - Harry has never met his parents - but… has he, really? The people Gran describes are not the ones Neville sees at St. Mungos.

He sighs, knowing perfectly well that what he’s thinking is more than morbid and he should stop. He blames it on how little sleep he’s had in the last few weeks: even since Nagini has first appeared in his life. It’s affecting his usually placid and serene nature, and he doesn’t like it at all. 

He really hopes Dumbledore - or well, his portrait - will help them.

  
  


***

Harry comes to see him after a few hours, and in the meantime Neville has had the time to put himself out of that train of thoughts.

“The Headmistress said we can go now,” Harry says entering the dormitory, with Ron and Seamus after him. “If you’re ok with it?”

“I am,” Neville says, at the same time that Seamus asks “going somewhere?”

“Yes,” Harry answers. “Dumbledore’s business.”

“Still?” Ron asks, looking intently at Harry. “What is it?”

Neville can feel the tension in the room skyrocking, and realizes that’s probably one of the first few times they’ve talked with each other alone. _I’m sure that Harry is going to speak to you both again,_ Neville has said to him yesterday morning, but how and when are something he can’t really say, because, truth be told, he still doesn’t know what’s wrong about Harry.

 _Has he told them about Malfoy’s trial? How affected he was?_ Neville wonders.

“Nothing important,” Harry says.

“Harry -” Ron starts, visibly getting angrier, but before it goes in a full shout (something that wouldn’t help his friends in the fragile state they are now, Neville thinks, remembering perfectly well when they fought in their fourth year) Neville interrupts.

“It’s for us both, actually,” Neville says, adding the first thing he comes to his mind. “It’s about Gryffindor’ sword. Since I and Harry were the last to people to have held it in peril -”

“- we need to officially give it back to the Sorting Hat,” Harry concludes, following Neville’s lead.

They can see plantly in Ron’s face that he doesn’t believe them - and Neville can’t really blame him, seeing what they’d come up with - but nods and lets them go.

“That had to be the stupidest excuse we could come up with,” Neville tells Harry when they’re away from Gryffindor tower.

“You’re right,” Harry answers with a little laugh. “Gryffindor’ sword, really?”

“It was the first thing that came into my mind.”

“But you’re right, we’re the last two people… I wonder who held it before us.”

“We could ask Dumbledore.”

“Yeah…” Harry says, “with all the other things we have to ask.”

That though sobers them both, and Neville feels the anxiety for knowing that Nagini’s not there anymore rise in him again.

“Do you think he will help us?” _To find her?_

Harry looks at him. “He will,” he says. “I trust Dumbledore completely. Even after...” he continues, but then stops. A pained expression crosses his face. “Everything,” he says in the end. “I guess Scrimgeour was right,” he concludes, before giving the password to the gargoyle (that, to Neville’s surprise, is _Dumbledore_ ) and going inside the Headmistress’ Office.

“The Headmistress put the password in his name?” Neville wonders aloud, not at all surprised by the fact.

But Harry, with a little smile, shocks him. “It was Snape, actually.”

***

“Hello Professor Dumbledore,” Harry says, a few feet in front of him, to Dumbledore’s portrait.

“My dear boys,” Dumbledore salutes them when they enter the office, that is otherwise void of anyone - even other portraits, Neville notices. Harry must have told McGonagall that this discussion was a serious one.

_And it is, isn’t it?_

“It’s wonderful to see you both,” Dumbledore continues. “I’ve wondered how you two fared in those painful moments.”

“We manage,” Harry answers. “There’s still much to do.”

“Indeed there is… A war is always a difficult time, even when it stops. Mourning the ones who went away, while repairing what’s been destroyed… it pains my heart to not be there and help you.”

“Thank you Headmaster,” Neville says, grateful for his words, and sees Harry nodding beside him. “But you’ve done more than enough for us. And there are many people here, helping. Even your brother is here.”

“Ah, yes, I’ve heard about Aberforth’s bravery during this last year,” Dumbledore answers. “I’m grateful he helped you in such a time.”

“Me too,” Neville says truthfully. “Without him, not many of us would be here now.”

“Yes, that is indeed true, but you are to thank as well for that. You were quite a leader, so I was told, and helped Harry tremendously in the last battle.”

Before Neville can answer - _I didn’t do anything special,_ or worse, _if you consider killing a human being helping -_ Harry starts talking. “This is actually the reason why we’re here, professor.”

“Oh?” Dumbledore asks surprised. “What is it?”

“During the final battle, Neville… he killed Nagini.”

Hearing Harry say it brings back in Neville all the emotions of guilt and pain he’s felt even since knowing that Nagini was a woman. _You did nothing wrong_ _,_ Nagini has told him, _it was the right thing to do. I don’t blame you._

 _She didn’t deserve it,_ Neville thinks. _Not everything else. If we find here, I’ll try to coax here to find good things now. Even if she’s already dead._

“I know my boy,” Dumbledore answers, looking at Neville. “With the Sword of Gryffindor. A brave act indeed.”

“How can you call it _brave_?” Neville asks. “When I killed a person!”

Dumbledore looks baffled by this, then turns his attention to Harry. “I see you told him about her story. Why did you, Harry?”

“He didn’t. There was no need. She’s a ghost! Here, in Hogwarts!”

Harry’s looking at him, probably shocked by his outburst, which he’s so out of character for him that he himself feels shocked.

Dumbledore, homewer, is completely frozen. “What?”

“She attacked Neville a week after the war, professor,” Harry answers for him. “She’s staying in Myrtle’s bathroom since then.”

***

Neville has never seen Dumbledore look so lost. “She… She was alive? All this time?”

“She wasn’t conscious,” Neville says, because he doesn’t want Dumbledore to think that all that Nagini had done with Voldemort had been on purpose. “But she remembers it all now. It grieves on her.”

“Good Merlin,” Dumbledore says, his voice broken. “Nagini… a ghost? But how? Her curse was complete decades ago. She _was_ a snake through and through. It… it must leave the soul intact, for her to be still here. Merlin... “

Both he and Harry don’t speak, understanding that Dumbledore needs a few moments to digest the information. “I thought…” he says in the end. “I thought she was lost forever.”

Neville sees that Dumbledore is on the verge of crying, and only then realizes truly what both Nagini and Harry, and the picture of them together, had tried to tell him: Dumbledore really cared about her. As obviously does Myrtle.

Maybe he really has a chance to find her. And to let her be happy.

“Did you know she was Voldemort’s pet?"

“Yes, I knew,” Dumbledore answers, still sad. “When I saw her on Voldemort’ shoulder, I recognized her immediately.”

“Why didn’t you take her, then?” Neville asks Dumbledore, the same question he’s had that afternoon, brought again to his mind by the obvious pain on the Headmaster’s face.

“By that time, Neville, Volmodert was already powerful enough that a direct attack was a risk to be taken with extreme precaution. Besides, I had thought before that time that he’d named his pet Nagini in honor of his favorite person in the world, the only one, to my knowledge, he’d truly cared about. 

But seeing her, even from afar… It destroyed me, knowing that I’d failed a dear friend so completely. My only consolation was that I was sure that there was nothing of the woman I’d met in the snake anymore. It was like she was dead, but not really. I’d grieved her for a long time, and it was like grieving her all over again. Now… now I know I’ve failed completely. I’ve failed so many people.”

Before Neville can say anything, he sees Dumbledore’s portrait crying, and it shocks him so much that he doesn’t find any words. Harry himself seems pretty upset, but he finds his words before Neville.

“You did the best you could,” Harry answers. “And no one knew of her. Not even herself. She… she feels guilty for all that she’s done under Voldemort.”

“What?” Neville asks. “But it’s not her fault!”

“Neither is yours,” Harry asks. “But you still feel like it is. It’s not that easy.”

 _It’s different for me,_ he wants to say, but before he can Dumbledore speaks again.

“None of it would have happened if she and Aurelius hadn’t been involved in the war.”

“Aurelius?” Neville asks, remembering Nagini talking about him, her love. “Did you know him?”

“My dear boy, of course I did. He was my brother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * dementiri personalitas is bad latin for "outline the personality".  
> **Artigician is the magical equivalent of an artist (artist + magician). Not so clever, I know
> 
> Ok, from now on updates will be more frequent :)


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